Challenge Set
by Vanessa S. Quest
Summary: Collection of ficlets and longer fics brought about through prompts. Please R & R, please enjoy. Varying levels of H/R. CHALLENGE SET 7 BEGINNING, more to come with the next challenge set.
1. 41 Vegas

In the BAU there was a golden truth that one did well to live by, Dr. Spencer Reid is a card-shark. As long as you were aware of his propensity to put a casino into the red until security caught onto his presence, and played your own budget accordingly, things usually went alright. After all, as a magician, he was a natural entertainer.

That charismatic zest and four glasses of aged scotch had brought Hotch to the current situation, and he was kicking himself in the ass for it. That was only partly true, actually. After all, he had been planning on surprising his lover of about nine months for a while now, sure he had hoped on waiting until at least the one-year mark, but since when did life go according to his personal plans?

"I see your visit with your brother and raise you a visit with my mother."

Aaron had been wanting Spencer to meet Sean for a while now, since it was apparent to him that this would relationship was the next chapter in his romantic life, and potentially the last chapter of it… dared he hope! He wanted Spencer to meet Sean and Jessica, but he was having a hard time bringing up that idea, even more difficult was the idea of actually doing it, in both scenarios he was sure he would be drinking. Never in his 44 years did he ever think he would come out of the closet. He thought his show wife and show life would be it…

"You must have a pretty good hand…" Spencer whispered, the erotic way he used his words drove Aaron's hard-on and own hubris to think he'd win the draw. He really did make a stupid drunk. With a proud smile he laid out his hand, three of a kind, aces. It was a good hand, hell, it was a great hand. That's when he saw Reid's smirk.

"You just couldn't pull that other ace, huh?" He started putting his cards down, first up was the Ace of clubs, then came a Jack of diamonds, Aaron gave him a funny look. Had he really won…? Then came the Queen of hearts, then the suicide-King of spades, and a ten of diamonds. Aaron's face faltered, apparently he'd be springing for a trip to Vegas. "My mom's really been looking forward to meet my lover. I already told her all about you, and on her lucid days, she's been really happy to hear about you."

That smug smile… Aaron glowered, or maybe he pouted, his brow furrowed as an idea struck him and as it did, he pounced Spencer. Pulling the gaggle of spidery limbs over the back of the couch and into the cushions on the front half, his lips made quick contact and they were making out within an awkward three seconds of Spencer adjusting to the sudden change in altitude.

Needy sounds of "Hnn" and "Ohh" and "Ahh, ohh, right there don't you dare stop…" filled Aaron's apartment that night as he mentally crunched the numbers to his paycheck into including tuition for Jack's private kindergarten classes, groceries, insurance, mortgage, and a round trip for two to Vegas. He had it figured out pretty quickly, it meant he'd have to put in three extra hours at work a week to meet it comfortably without pulling anything from his savings. Since he already tended to put in ten extra hours of overtime that he never banked on, he was certain he would be in the black for the month, as long as he didn't play cards with Spencer for money at least.

Spencer had been the one to insist on paying for the hotel room, which had surprised Aaron, he wanted to pay for the impromptu trip, but he understood that certain dynamics of their relationship left Spencer prone to feeling unequal if he just continued to take Aaron's kindness and never offer up any of his own. Spencer's adorable if uncharacteristic comment about him not wanting Aaron to be what Morgan called a sugar-daddy had practically sent Aaron to the floor in a giggle-fit. At 44 years of age, a seasoned FBI agent who faced serial killers down professionally was giggling like a little girl, barely keeping himself elevated off the floor at the mentions of being a "sugar daddy" which he was pretty sure was an archaic term even if Spencer didn't quite realize it.

He respected Spencer, and appreciated his offer to help lighten the load, so he had let Spencer pick and pay for the hotel. He had suspected it to be some off-the-strip place that Spencer would have known about from living in the area, a nice, but inexpensive budget motel or hotel, the kinds they stayed at when they travelled for work. What he expected and what he was greeted with when he entered the coordinates into the rental car GPS were quite different. Spencer had given him an address, not the name, but upon pulling up to the swank hotel he had to wonder just how much card sharking Spencer had been doing on the side, and if Morgan had had to sell any of his properties or if Spencer was targeting innocent civilians too. Then again, it was possible for the young doctor to just have that money on the side from his academic tours. Rossi did fairly well on the lecture circuit, even if he did focus more on writing books instead. Aaron had just always assumed Dave's big paycheck was because of the books, but looking at the hotel maybe the lecture-circuit was more lucrative than he thought.

"3131 Las Vegas Blvd S," Aaron had typed in, "I'm surprised you wanted to stay on the strip. You usually hate to."

"This place has a spa, it's pretty good for relaxing. Oh, plus, they have a sports bar." Spencer smiled as if he had made some rare find, when Aaron pulled to the left to greet a valet for the Wynn he looked at Spencer.

"This can't be the right…" Spencer was unrolling the window before Aaron could finish his thought.

"Reservation for two, should be under the last name Reid." Spencer over-spoke him to address the valet and smirked at Aaron successfully. "It isn't like you had to fly us in first-class, so don't pretend that this is show-boating. The rooms here are amazing." Spencer had leaned over Aaron to pop the trunk. A well-dressed bellhop gathered up the luggage as Spencer and Aaron slid out of the car.

Walking around to be closer to Aaron and the doors, Spencer threw his arm over Aaron's shoulder as he waltzed into the place, the confident air around him was uncanny. For a moment, Aaron revisited the idea of Morgan putting a second mortgage on one of his houses after all.

The Reid Party, as the two were called, were directed to a Panoramic Suite, "For the record, I have a running credit for the restaurants here and the room, so after we settle in want to get dinner?"

Inside the hotel room, Aaron just looked around in disbelief. The suite was nicer than his house and he had a nice house. "Spencer… what's this about…?"

Spencer started to blush, "You think it's too over-the-top…?"

"Well, it's nice… I just don't want you to think you had to go so overboard…"

"But I do!" Spencer was looking at Aaron, then looking away blushing, he buried himself into the couch, pulling a pillow to his chest to hide his blush, "I was hoping to have this discussion after dinner at soonest."

Aaron sat down next to him. "What conversation…?"

"…The one where I profess my undying love and proclaim this to kind of be my interpretation of a honey moon." He looked down, "I mean, I know I should technically propose first, but realistically, with our jobs we can't even fill out a domestic partnership form let alone get married in DC without raising 37 separate red flags."

"Wait… you mean this is your idea of a…"

"…Oh god, you don't want to, do you?" His voice was shrinking and he was up out of the couch making fast strides for the bathroom, Aaron luckily had a little more speed, he managed to wrap his arm around Spencer's waist.

"I never said that. What I want to say is that I'm glad you're on the same page. I want to come out to my family about us, do you think I'd do that if I wasn't dead serious about this? About us?"

Spencer looked up and into Aaron's eyes, the crashing tides of relief evidence in twin amber oceans before Spencer leaned in and stole a kiss to go along side Aaron's stolen heart and breathe.

"So when should we go visit your mom?"

"Let's have dinner, amazing sex, and contemplate that in the morning, we do have all week for you two to visit with each other, and I don't want this moment to end just yet." Spencer leaned back from his snare around Aaron's shoulders to contemplate, "On second thought, I don't need dinner if you don't. Want to skip it? That or we can order room service in a little bit… I think amazing sex fits in better right here."

"Sounds like a plan…"

End.


	2. 42 Sheets

Reid bit back the bile in his throat. Today was working into being a very long, hard, tiring day. As he opened the door to the apartment it just confirmed it. He followed the rose petals inward, 'Not today… please not today…' Reid thought quietly as he pressed inward, he made his way past the fireplace, stoked and warm. The logs were charred grey with embers visible beneath the licking orange flames.

He kept up his mantra, the bags under his eyes followed by the gnawing ache in the base of his skull as he continued past the living room, through the dining area adjoined to the kitchen, the wine bottle sweating with condensation as the ice within the bucket clinked around it, melting slowly back into water, rose petals inside the metal bucket holding the Merlot there.

'Just be asleep… please…' He gave himself that extra push as he towed toward the bedroom, he ever so slowly twisted the knob as to not make a sound, he pushed it open and turned into the room.

Black silk sheets, they looked so soft, but the image was ruined for him with the pair of bodies draped on top of it. "Clear!" He called out through his mike which was stowed in his right cufflink. He lowered his gun as he approached the cooling bodies, the sheer overkill was preposterous. Red arcs and splashed redid the apartment-white walls as Morgan filed in behind him.

"Damn…"

"We barely missed him this time." Reid glanced at the clock on the dresser across the way from the bed. To the side was an empty box that had once housed sweets. He approached the victims and upon turning the heads saw they both had a truffle shoved into their mouths. "I'm swearing off chocolate for a month."

Reid glanced around the room three more times before stepping out of it, dialing Hotch as he went. "We were too late, he had to have left about an hour ago. He might even have been the anonymous 911 caller after all."

"That's a new tactic for him to taunt the police, but if he regiments it into his method, Garcia will be able to trace him the next time he calls."

"The next time he calls there's going to be at least two more dead bodies." Reid bit back. He was upset, he knew he shouldn't be, not in the sense of being angry at least. Two weeks ago, before this case had even been brought to JJ's attention he had mentioned these exact words to Hotch, _Next time you come over to my place, I'm going to get you in front of the fireplace in bed with silk sheets, chocolate-dipped strawberries, a lot of wine, and a lot more sex._

Hotch had seemed pleased by the idea, the next week Reid had even received red roses to the office from an 'anonymous' admirer, he had been all smiled until Hotch asked him who the flowers were from and who were they for. The touch of jealousy had been genuine and it had terrified Reid. Not that Hotch would be jealous, that was a fascinating facet of his personality to explore in privacy along with soft-core S&M games about being punished; what perturbed Reid was that someone other than Hotch had sent him flowers. He had no idea who or why, it wasn't like he attracted the normal sorts and his gut instincts had been sending out shooting danger signs to the point that he was sleeping with his gun under his pillow.

Under his pillow, and he knew better! He knew the statistics about accidental gun discharges and household shooting incidents when a person did something like that! Two days later he had woken up with someone clad in black overlooking him in the bed, it almost gave him a heart attack, and almost gave the visitor a bullet wound. He had scrambled to get his glasses as fast as he went for his gun letting out a, "Hotch you scared the shit out of me! What are you doing coming into my apartment like that in the middle of the night-! Oh…"

And with his glasses on, he realized it wasn't Hotch, he also realized he had a gun in his hand and pulled it out quickly to point at the person facing him with a gleaming knife. A small struggle ensued before Reid discharged two rounds at the suspect, one grazing the left arm about along the posterior border of the deltoid muscle, the other buried into his chest and doing nothing. Reid presumed he was wearing a bullet-proof vest. He opted to aim at the head about the same time as the attacker decided the same thing.

His head had been slammed back into the headrest of his bed the gun discharged for a third time as it rammed into Reid's nose and cheek in one fluid bought of momentum, but there was more red coming from the invader than Reid, so he took it in stride, the attacker was stumbling back. He had left his bedroom stumbling out the door and retreated. Reid called Hotch first, then the police upon Hotch's instruction. He had also cleared his apartment by himself in fuzzy character pajama pants (Invader Zim, courtesy of one Secret Santa Garcia '08) and a white pull-over cotton shirt. He must have looked ridiculous clutching his bloodied nose with his glasses on and hair in strange angles, holding his pistol as he cleared his apartment, almost slipping on the attacker's blood that the blacked out apartment made impossible to see.

Reid had rented a one bedroom, but instead of using the "living room" space as a living room, he had turned it into a pseudo-loft, a studio with a separate room for a library, the table near the bed and kitchen, the entry to his apartment through the kitchen in fact. He had enjoyed having a kitchen with a door so he could close off the room before, but now with that room being attached to bathroom with one door and the door outside his apartment on the other, he wished he had taken the door down after all. If the invader had went into the bathroom, he might come out back into the living area again if Reid went through the kitchen, but then again, there was an equal probability that he'd have just left through the entrance door.

He cleared the kitchen and made his way to the front door, the chain was cut, probably from bolt cutters. How the hell had he not heard that? Oh, right, he had been listening to Schubert, die Schöne Müllerin then Fantasie in F Minor in particular. As his hand touched the doorknob it quickly withdrew, maybe it was from the sticky, warm moisture he felt on it, or maybe it was from the sudden wiggle, he aimed his service-piece at the door, taking a step back. Did the unsub leave and then try to come back…? The door pulled open fiercely and suddenly there were muffled yells.

"DROP THE GUN!"

"NO YOU DROP YOUR GUN!"

Simultaneously, this repeated twice until Hotch's voice got through to Reid's, "HE'S MY AGENT! DON'T SHOOT! REID! LOWER YOUR GUN!"

Reid's eyes went wide, then he turned around, "Did you see someone go past you, maybe on the street…?" He put his finger to his mouth, not realizing how disturbing the image was when everything below his nose was coated in blood in some macabre mustache. He palmed the bathroom door and pushed it open, it was empty, the door still shut, and with no blood inside it, and the lights now on, it looked as if the unsub had run out the front door when confronted with a federal agent's pistol. Reid slammed into the wall and slid down it, his gun held to his side, but his finger still rested on the trigger until Hotch disarmed him literally.

"Jesus, what the hell happened to you…?"

"Covering the whole spectrum, huh?" Reid smiled, his left corner perked up more than the right, but it was intentional. He groaned as the pain sank in. From his nose. "I need a wet towel… there's one under the sink in the bathroom…" He offered, not wanting to give away to the cops that Aaron Hotchner knew damn well where he kept his linens in his apartment.

"I'll get it, you just sit tight with this officer."

As other officers called out, "CLEAR!" Reid was left to realize his apartment was now a crime-scene. He only thought he was glad that all of his sexual objects could be interpreted as innocent household items, his lube was a small tub of Vaseline he kept in his first aid kit, and hand lotion he kept near the kitchen sink. His actual sex toys were neatly hidden within a book safe, and in a library as extensive as his 'bedroom' allowed itself to be, there was no way the cops would go over it, even if the unsub had gone in there and bled on it, they'd never get to it or be able to open the safe, though Reid was realizing he was lucky that his attacker didn't head further inward, a cornered predator would either pull the stops to survive or fold in cowardice, but Reid didn't get the impression that he was the sort to fold.

"I have a go-bag in the closet there…" Reid pointed, "If I can, I'd like to take that and go to the hospital now. They may be able to set my nose for me." What sounded tangible to him came out garbled as blood filled his nasal conchae. Hotch made the effort to manually tilt Reid's head backwards, adjust the towel pressed against it and then put a little more pressure.

Reid winced, "Chh… ow! Tha' hur'z you know…"

"I'll grab your bag, Morgan in three minutes out."

"We chould wai' fo' 'im toget here…" Reid said.

Hotch translated it as, "We're going to wait here until another one of my agents gets here to supervise the scene."

"I chot 'im three times I think… call aroun' the hosp'als for GSW male vicdims."

"Where did you hit him?"

"Lefd arm, neck, chesd. Bud 'e was wearin' Kevlah." Reid mumbled.

"Right, so left arm and neck, might have a welt on the chest. What did he look like?"

"Black. He wore all black an' a ski-mask. Whi'e guy though." Reid mentioned, "Coul'n't see 'is face or eyes… too da'k too tell."

"Put a BOLO out for a Caucasian male, how tall, build?"

"6'2" I think, Morgan's build."

"6'2", medium-muscular build, wearing all black."

Come the morning, when Reid had hoped to hear from the others that the attacker was rounded up at some random clinic, instead he opened the news paper that Hotch had delivered to his front door about two victims stabbed over 300 times in their apartment, dead from the excessive force. Three days later, a rushed blood panel ran in the DC DNA lab confirmed the victims were killed by the same man who had attacked Reid in his apartment. The victims had been killed the night before Reid's attack.

By week's end, though, no more bodies had turned up, that was until Monday morning, another couple was killed, the crime scene tampered with to have black silk sheets placed on the bed, wine chilled in a bucket they had owned, chocolates set out and shoved into the victims' mouths, just like the first crime scene, except according to neighbors, the victims had been on the outs with each other and were not likely to have such a spontaneously romantic event.

Two days after that, another set of bodies showed up, same MO, and thanks to the blood evidence left at Reid's apartment and the prior victims, the DNA matches made it clear that the same unsub was attacking these people, as if the signature wasn't definitive enough. Three days later another two corpses, and then, two days later there was an anonymous 911 call clueing in police about a double homicide.

Reid had kept silent for the last two weeks about being silently freaked out that the man that had tried to kill him in his apartment, who had probably been the one to send him anonymous roses, had been killing two people at a time and making it apparent that he wanted Reid's attention… all because his shots hadn't been good enough. If he had just got him once in the head, this wouldn't be happening… and yet…

That was what he was thinking when he left the room. He mentally played back the 911 call, and while an eidetic memory didn't work with sound the same way as it did with images, he was having a hard time getting that voice out of his head.

"Hello…? Hello, I think some guy just killed two people at…"

The attacker had said nothing to Reid, but after hearing that tape, that had become his voice, there was no doubting it in Reid's mind. He wasn't one not to place the familiarity of the scene to Foyet. That was another thing keeping his mouth shut and mind reeling.

He returned to the office as Morgan made promises to catch the sick fuck and Hotch assured them that Garcia would set up a trap-and-trace for the DC area.

Stalking off to his desk, Reid's eyes immediately went wide and the bullpen filled with a sound not characteristically heard, "_What the fuck?_"

Heads snapped up, and Hotch, Morgan, Prentiss and Garcia were swarming him before he realized he had just dropped the f-bomb.

He held up a box of chocolate truffles with a printed note that read, _Sorry I missed you today_ _-XOXO_.

Reid sat down hard in his chair as Hotch called out, "Garcia…"

"Get the surveillance footage for while you were out of office, on it boss!"

"Morgan…" Hotch gave him and Prentiss a look that spoke volumes.

"Come on Reid, let's take a walk." Morgan added, Prentiss pulled on a pair of latex gloves before putting the chocolate truffles into an evidentiary bag for processing.

Reid put his hands up in frustration before letting out a harsh breath, "I need coffee to deal with this." As calmly as Reid could with having a clearly psychopathic stalker/killer fixated on him, he approached the coffee pot in the break-room.

As he came up for air from his mug, after about four rounds of coffee in, Morgan had stepped out as Hotch had stepped into the room.

"Reid… how are you holding up?"

"I've seen better days." Reid's eyes went around the room suspiciously before approaching Hotch and putting his head against his shoulder for a moment before passing him, "I need to use the rest room, too much coffee."

Anyone who knew Dr. Spencer Reid knew that 4 cups of coffee was not even close to too much coffee, so Hotch knew that was as clear of an invitation to talk out of the prying eyes of surveillance cameras as he'd get. He followed behind Reid and after entering the bathroom, Reid locked the door, checked under the stalls, finding it empty, buried his face into Hotch's chest careful of his bandaged nose.

"I don't think it's safe for me to stay at your place any longer… if the unsub is tracking my movements, he might find you and Jack. I'm going to get a hotel room."

"Like hell you're going to some hotel, Reid. If you really feel unsafe at my place, I can set up a safe-house but there's no way I'm letting you be alone until we catch this whack-job."

Reid smiled, "Is that your _professional_ opinion?"

"Absolutely."

"The 911 call might not be a taunt, he might really be seeking communications with me, the out-reach… the other victims all received flowers and chocolates at the scene but nothing before hand. I need to investigate the crime scene at my apartment… maybe we missed something."

"It isn't easy to be objective when looking at your own life, Reid."

"I know that, but I've told you I do some of my best thinking when under sheer terror. Something made me feel like I had to sleep with my gun, and I'm not the kind of person who just gets those thoughts, something must have triggered it. Maybe I saw something around my apartment that made me feel unnerved."

"Right now we have several angles to play. JJ is putting together a press conference, and I think the best way to draw him out will be if we have you present it or on camera when it is presented, but if we do that, you'll need to have a security detail."

"We still have two days before he kills again, I think it's worth a try. Have JJ set it up so it seems like I'm manning one of the phone lines, we can set up a trap-and-trace to see the numbers dialing in to leave anonymous tips, anyone who keeps calling in trying to reach me, well…we can use that to limit the suspect pool. If it works, we might find him."

"Alright, that sounds like a plan. Why don't we head to your apartment, you look around see if it jogs anything and then JJ will present the profile to the press, we'll hold it in the police station and have you sitting nearby, on screen manning a phone line."

Reid approached the bathroom door, unlocking it before holding the door open for Hotch, Hotch exited, thanked him, and proceeded toward the parking garage. "Morgan, come on, we're heading to Reid's apartment."

Morgan grabbed his gun from his drawer and approached. "Yeah? What's this about?"

"I think he might have been stalking me near my apartment in the days leading up to the attack, I want to look around the perimeter and see if anything seems out of place, maybe I'll remember if I saw a strange vehicle."

No sooner than Reid said it, than he remembered seeing a rose delivery van parked at the corner across the way from his apartment's large windows. He had a corner apartment, so his library had Western exposure, and his bedroom/living area had Southern exposure. Through his living-room window he had seen a delivery truck for the past several days just sitting there at end of shift. It was strange, since company cars usually would stay in the company's parking lot when the building was closed, but there was a possibility that he had a new neighbor. That had been why he dismissed it at first.

He recalled the logo, it was the same logo as what was on the card from the roses signed _-XOXO_.

"Son of a…" Reid thrust his hand into the pockets of his pants. He pulled the crumpled card from his right pocket. "When I called to ask who had bought the flowers sent to me, they said the customer had paid in cash and didn't leave his name… but the person I spoke to, he sounded like the anonymous 911 caller. That bastard works there." He pulled out his cellphone.

"Reid, what are you doing?"

"I'm calling in an order of roses." He said dryly, glancing at Hotch then Morgan he looked at the address before heading back to the SUV. "Ah, hi… I was wondering, the other day I had spoken with a man who works there, uh huh, yeah, white guy, about 6'2", yeah… he uh, he had a bandage on his neck, I'm sorry, I'm so bad with names… what was his name again?"

"Oh you must be talking about Charlie, he's not in today. What did you need?"

"Charlie, what's his last name?" Reid asked, "Or better yet, what's the next time he's working?"

"He comes in tomorrow. It's Charlie Walters. Who is this? Charlie doesn't get many callers asking about him."

Reid clicked his tongue, "Hello…? Hello, are you there…? You're breaking-" He hung up abruptly, "We have a name, Charles Walters. Let's see if Garcia can pull anything up. And if she can't… we'll still have the phone lines set up."

Reid's thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of pistols drawing. Eyes going wide, he continued to look around, Hotch and Morgan had their guns drawn, Reid slow to the draw, armed himself as a man approached, knife in one hand, sawed-off shotgun in another.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." He mentioned.

The same voice as the 911 caller, the man who had attacked him two weeks ago stood before him, no mask this time, but everything Reid had described had been spot on. 6'2", medium build, Caucasian male, added details told Reid he is a brunette, blue eyed, baby-faced man with a gaping wound on his neck and a weakened left arm, the arm holding the shotgun, no less.

"You must be Charlie…" Reid said, gun half-drawn.

"I knew you'd figure it out. I knew you'd come back here, too. I just had to wait you out."

"So then, why don't we talk. That's what you wanted to do, isn't it?"

Charlie smiled, Reid stepped around Morgan, bringing himself toward the left, drawing Charlie's attention to him and not the others.

"You sent me those gifts, didn't you? I was surprised to see you in my apartment… I didn't expect that, I reacted badly. I'm sorry."

Charlie swiped at his neck with his right hand, "Naw, it's okay. I didn't call ahead… of course you'd be startled…"

"Why _DID_ you come to my apartment, anyway Charlie? What did you want to do…?" Reid asked, really not wanting to hear the answer as he kept side-stepping, he was almost in the street now, three paces from the others, it was time to close in.

"I wanted to see you again. Every day for a month I'd see you staring inside at my display, you got me… you just knew what I was trying to say… and I wanted to talk to you more." He blushed, making it obvious to Reid he didn't want to just _talk_.

"At the flower shop, the one with the chocolate truffles and the rose petals, how it says, 'Nothing says I love you like…' with the petals lining the silk sheets. It was very beautiful."

"Yeah, but then you went and started calling me the wrong man's name…" His temper flared, as did his nostrils at that. Reid swallowed hard as he saw the shot gun raising more level to his chest. "Who the hell is Hotch, anyway?"

Hotch took aim, all the while waiting for the man to be distracted enough to lose his sight on he and Morgan, "I am." He shot Charlie in the left shoulder, right shoulder and knee. The shotgun fell to the ground, Morgan rushed him, kicking it away.

"We," he gestured his fingers at Reid, then to his chest then outward to Hotch in a v-shape, "are going to have a _LONG_ chat about this, and the BAU's blatant breeching of fraternization policies. Bad enough it's Garcia and Kevin… but seriously, it's like everyone on the team is hooking up with someone else."

Reid smirked, "Guess we can cancel that press conference now."

"Guess so." Hotch mentioned, overtly putting his hand over Reid's shoulder before leaning in to kiss him, purposefully antagonizing the unsub as the man writhed on the pavement.

"I never realized you were the jealous type." Reid mentioned, almost humming to Morgan's chagrin, seriously, after confronting a deadly psychopath the young agent was practically aglow. It was disturbing, especially when he realized that Hotch was the reason Reid was being so blatant.

"Listen, if you two are going to flirt, go in the SUV or better yet, your apartment cuz I don't need to see that." Morgan huffed, cuffing the unsub as he waited for the paramedics to arrive.

End.


	3. 43 Suspiria

The IKY'dU Blog - Hotch/Reid Writing Challenge: Round #4  
Pen name: Vanessa S. Quest  
Title: Suspiria  
Genre: Romance, General  
Rating: T  
Prompt: Set 3: blanket - a scary movie - rain - power outage

After knowing each other for years, the BAU team had come to know each other's quarks intimately. Little contradictions that didn't seem as out of place to the familiar friends as it would to say, a concerned neighbor or random LEO; for example, Morgan disliked masks and clowns, Garcia believed in some sort of fate or destiny maybe even karma it was hard to describe and understand without actually being Garcia, JJ due to on-the-job hazards has a severe distrust in dogs, and Reid was afraid of the dark yet loved Halloween and his job profiling serial killers.

Nyctophobia usually developed out of some sense of what was lurking in the dark, and yet, Reid who seems completely compatible with dealing with all of those woes when the lights are present becomes startlingly jumpy if the lights dim a touch too low.

In years of knowing him and this, Hotch had adjusted to watching scary movies with a light on in the kitchen when he and Reid would have date-nights at his place. It became so ritualistic he almost forgot why he did it. Truthfully, he had grown so comfortable with things, that he had started to grow careless. Then again, hind-sight always was a bitch.

The evening had been going so well, swimmingly even! He had rented a stack of movies, two Hitchcock films, and Suspiria, a foreign horror film Rossi had recommended. Realization donned immediately that Rossi might well be laughing at him at this exact instance over an iced Scotch of his own.

Work had let out at 7PM, Reid had gone back to his place to get his go-bag for the weekend at Hotch's, Hotch had rented the movies and gotten take-out, the radio playing in the background of his car had warned about the possibility of rain, citing a 30% chance of drizzles. Reid was at Hotch's door shortly after he had gotten in and set out the dishes, he had decided to get authentic Polish food, a new family restaurant had opened within the last month that he'd been trying desperately to get to when the case-load was light. He settled upon ordering sausages and perogies. He had gotten some beer for good measure.

Inside the first four hours of movie-marathon, Hitchcock had dominated. Vertigo and Strangers on a Train had come and gone, setting an eerie, chilled and even creepy mood in the living room as fat pellets of rain began to hit the driveway. It was a summer rain, and with promises of drizzles not out of Hotchner's expectations. So, he put in Suspiria, Reid had mentioned the last movie-night that they should branch out to cinematography from other cultures to give them a fresh view and the added bonus of different motifs to make it less predictable, and Hotch had set himself up for success… or so he thought. Rossi had personally recommended the film, Reid had sworn he wouldn't look into it specifically, and it was arranged to be the next movie his NetFlix account would rent… right after The Wiggles. The scene with the crash of a body going through the stained-glass ceiling was louder than it should be.

Louder, and darker, because at the moment that scene flashed across the screen, the light in the foyer that Hotch had left on had gone out, and there was the extra surprise of a tree branch being where the light had been instead. The dooming boom of thunder and the snicker-snap that had occurred near-simultaneously just seconds before were making sense. Then the lights cut out, the TV, everything. Reid's eyes were saucers in his sunken-in face that looked of terror. His hands were thrumming on the couch as if searching for a flashlight…

…Which Hotch normally would leave nearby, just in case. He was thinking back now, had he? Had he remembered the just in case flashlight? No, no he had not. Surely, Reid would have found it by now if he had.

"Lights… get the lights…" Reid asserted, his mood darkening from cheerfully into a horror movie with creepy airs to actually frightened and uncomfortable.

"Stay right here, I'll be back soon." Hotch mentioned, stood, took two steps away, halted, pivoted to face back to Reid, put a hand on his shoulder encouragingly, and added, "_Right_ back."

Reid nodded a fifth time quickly enthused by the idea of promptness, Hotch approached his foyer, seeing the branch piercing his front window, making access to the junk-drawer flashlight there impossible. In addendum, he glanced outside the gaping hole in his house to notice Reid's car in disrepair thanks to another branch attached to the downed portion of tree making it into a convertible. His car, which had been in the garage, was effectively boxed in by the carnage. He winced to himself as he hoped Reid had good auto insurance.

Hotch went to the kitchen and produced a flashlight and his cell phone, returning to Reid on the couch as the younger man balled the fuzzy fabric of a blanket around his shoulders. The rain and thunder were growing loud, it had covered the sound of Hotch's approach, he put a hand on Reid's shoulder and he almost jumped out of his skin, clearly making eighteen inches off the couch cushions before crashing back downward onto it.

"Hotch! You scared the hell out of me…" Reid breathed, he smiled faintly as Hotch managed to maneuver the flashlight around enough to turn it on, he wasn't sure why he hadn't done that in the kitchen, come to think of it. It probably would have eased Reid to see light coming toward him.

Hotch sat back on the couch, and realizing the opportunity presented to him, he leaned in and started to make out with his terrified boyfriend in the dark. After all, this was the ultimate goal of horror films, wasn't it? It would be such a shame to waste what nature had given him… he'd deal with the costs of home-repair, downed electrical wires, and filing insurance claims about his boyfriend's car in the morning. Reid also seemed contented with the solution, as he fumbled with Hotch's buttons to loosen his shirt, eventually freeing it from him.

End.


	4. 44 Of Cowboy Hats and Bar Fights

The weather outside was tortuous at best, something that Reid had never supposed he would utter in reference to Montana in the summer time. How could he? He grew up in Las Vegas, home of the road-side egg-fry, and moved to a suburb of Washington DC, technically located in Virginia; and yes, while Reid knew full well of heat-waves even including those of more temperate environs, Reid had honestly never thought that he would ever be in Montana at the same time of a heat wave and still equate it with being uncomfortably hot, he just hadn't fathomed it.

He also hadn't packed for it, he noted somewhat bitterly as he rolled up his dress-shirt cuffs to his elbow, his sweater-vest was all but ignored in the corner of his go-bag. It was as if seeing the damned thing unpacked would make the room hotter, which, it wouldn't but still… why risk it needlessly? He leaned back into the hotel bed, the place had a cheap little A/C unit built in, but it didn't have the wattage or capacity to make this room anything remotely similar to livable, let alone comfortable. Thanks to the location being located in a skiing community, the hotels geared themselves to winter trends, to boot. There wasn't a ceiling fan around, Reid could feel the sweat beading up on his brow, his arms, hell- he felt it beading up on his shins, that just wasn't right. Being this hot in Montana… to distract himself, he went through the mental exercises of thinking cold thoughts. Thoughts like ice cream, iceberg, ice rink, ice cube, icicle, Strauss, you know, bitter-cold thoughts. He gave up when the doorknob to his room turned.

He was sitting up, now, attentively. No one should be coming into his room, there was no reason for it… The door didn't budge, thanks to his possession of the key and the obvious conclusion that the person on the other side of the door did not have one of like-design. Instead, there was a knock now.

Reid sat up, he supposed who this would be, the knock was easy enough to profile, and just shy of Morgan or Rossi fucking with him, that brisk, assertive yet civil knock sounded of Hotch's arrival. He opened the door quicker than he thought he should have moved given the way warm air had wrapped around him, making him a little more flushed, cheeks red from the god-awful heat.

"There you are, the others went down to the restaurant, we've been waiting for you to order. When you didn't answer your phone I volunteered to come get you."

Reid blinked, he blinked again. "…Uh…" He continued to look at Hotch stunned stupid before Hotch realized the hold-up and took off the cowboy hat.

"…Theme restaurant, we're in Montana. The waitress jumped me, before I knew it, Morgan and JJ already sent the pictures to Garcia." He sat the cowboy hat on the door stand before nodding to the door, "So, why didn't you answer your phone?"

Reid shook his head, "I didn't hear it…" His hand was navigating to the pouch in his messenger bag where he normally kept his phone, flushed red cheeks started to drain to white. "Where is it…?" He flipped open his bag now, searching for it more feverishly, "I know I put it in here…"

"…Reid?"

"My phone's gone!" A hand was up, over Reid's brow and through his own hair before he ripped his eyes off the bag to look at Hotch incredulously, "I'm sorry… I lost my phone… I didn't even realize. I have no idea where I could have left it either."

"Well, you should retrace your steps." Hotch said, stepping inside the room, closing the door. "Where's the last place you remember having your phone and seeing it?"

"Earlier, at the station, after we gave the profile to the police; Garcia sent me a message about …well… about breeching at least six different sexual harassment seminar principles." He blushed, Hotch realized that Garcia had done her typical drive-by message to knock the wind out of Reid, and realized that whatever she had managed to say had done a good job of making the good doctor into a strawberry. He wondered what she actually said to his subordinate, but knew he'd likely never find out.

"Then what happened?"

"I deleted the message, I put my phone back into my bag in the side pocket I always use, I closed my bag and put it on one of the chairs, the third from the back, and then left it there. When you guys got back, I packed up my bag and got back into the SUV with Morgan and Prentiss, Prentiss drove, Morgan sat in the back… and…" Reid's eyes narrowed. "Morgan took my phone, didn't he…? But why would he…?" He thought back to the face-reddening comments from Garcia then shot out the door, "Meet you at the bar!"

"Wait, Reid… we're at a restaurant… it doesn't have a-" Hotch looked out the room to see that Reid had already cleared the hallway, "bar. Damn he's fast enough to be back in the field, huh." Hotch clarified.

He knew Reid was technically cleared for the field, but lately he had been keeping him back, since the whole lengthy ordeal with Foyet and Haley, it was strange but he found comfort in coming back to the station and Reid just being THERE, no questions, just there… it made him feel secure but probably made Reid feel inadequate, he supposed he'd have to start letting his agent get back to the job he did so well, even if the grandiose color-coordinated geographic profile would go back to being just the bare-bone basics that Reid or Prentiss could throw together within a few hours when they had those hours to give to it.

Hotch closed Reid's door to the hotel room, making sure it was secure and then headed back to the restaurant downstairs. He silently wondered why he bothered to grab the cowboy hat from the stand before heading back into the bar, but supposed it would only be polite to return the waitress's hat to her.

Why they even made cowboy hats in pink, Hotch had no idea.

Hotch stepped into the restaurant at simultaneously the exact right and wrong time. Because he was there when he was there, he had managed to divert a mountain of paperwork from being filled out as a work-place incidence as he caught the flying fist courtesy of one Derek Morgan, it baffled him to even see the fist flying and in the direction that it was… but for the rightness of the timing came the wrongness of the timing, too. Rossi was chatting up as if this was a daily occurrence, "Oh let him, he deserves it."

"What the hell has gotten INTO you two?" Hotch mentioned as he took in Derek's appearance. He smelled of booze, booze than fifteen minutes ago he had not smelled of, he also looked wet… subsequently, Hotch realized his arm was sticky, and from the looks of it, that probably extended to his face, chest and lap as well. Derek Morgan was wearing a drink.

"Rossi's just miffed Reid used _his_ drink." Prentiss mentioned, her own glass tipped towards Reid as the younger man seethed.

"And he's upset because Morgan called him out about being a closet-case homosexual." JJ added, the commentary made Reid's eyes grow larger, more panicked as he turned to face her, he even squeaked.

Hotch's hand slipped for a moment, which was all it took for Derek to get loose and grab Reid's shoulder, pulling him into a headlock.

"This is one of my favorite shirts, now, YOU might not appreciate chick-magnet clothes like this, but think of the ladies… would you? Please?" He proceeded to give Reid a noogie until he yelped, which was about the time it took Hotch to pry Morgan off.

"Morgan! Whatever Reid's preferences are, are none of ANY of our concerns…" He looked back to Reid, "How did you tell, anyway? Garcia? Is that why you took his phone?"

"Hell no, Hotch. I took his phone to prove that we've all known he's gay and BEEN gay and WHO he's been gay FOR for over four years!"

Reid stilled, frozen in place with a look of sheer horror aimed at the floor.

"That's none of any of our business." Hotch crossed his arms, "Reid's a human being and has rights to both love whomever he wants and confide with whomever he wants, if he doesn't want to tell us anything about his preferences there's nothing dishonorable or disrespectful about it. It's a PERSONAL issue." Hotch chided, maybe issue wasn't the key word-choice, there was nothing wrong with Reid being gay, however, there clearly was a stigmatism to it, and with Morgan's reaction all but playing into it, it made perfect sense as to why the genius had so smartly stayed quiet about the whole thing.

"Hotch, it's a picture of YOU." Morgan proffered, he then dug out the phone for proof. "Garcia had nothing to do with that, she just told Reid that he was going to get outted today. She is the Goddess of All-Knowing, All-Seeing, and All-Gossiping, and we all agreed it was time he comes clean and confronts you about it. Isn't that right, Pretty-Boy?"

"Shut up…" Reid managed through his blush, he shoved past Morgan and out of the restaurant, which obviously had more of a bar than Hotch realized, after all, Rossi was a bit of a snob for liquor and wouldn't drink any old Scotch, hmm, well, maybe any OLD Scotch, but not a bargain-rack drink that's for certain.

"You, you and Garcia earned yourselves a sensitivity training seminar." He pointed at Morgan and Rossi, "Different ones though, Garcia's not going to make it entertaining for either of you. And I'll be stopping in to make sure she didn't just 'fix' some clerical error about your attendance, either." He looked at JJ and Prentiss, "As for you both, did you really think that was a surprise to me? We've all known Reid's preferences since…" He paused, "Well, JJ you've known since that Red Skins game, Prentiss you probably picked up on it along the way, same with Dave. Personally, I've known since Gideon brought him onto the team. The point is, we're here for work and now we have to work on getting him back up to par and not on a jet to best-case-scenario Virginia, worst-case-scenario Vegas."

The others blinked, "It doesn't phase you at all that Reid likes you?" Prentiss asked first, probably the fastest to find her tongue, after all Hotch had practically just given a love dissertation on the subject of Reid.

"No, and if any of you haven't figured out MY feelings for HIM over the past several _years_ you're making me regret accepting you into my team."

"No, no, we all knew you had the tendencies, but with Haley and Foyet and all that happened…" JJ shut up halfway through, Rossi a bit more crass and pissed about the sensitivity seminar continued.

"…Hell, we wouldn't have brought it up if we didn't think it was mutual." He paused, looked at Morgan, "Ok, that one might have, if only to get Reid trolling gay bars with Garcia cast in the roll of 'wing-woman'. But the point is, if no one lights a flame under your ass, you'll just sit there and just happily notice, file, and systematically ignore that infatuation until you retire. He doesn't deserve that; much like I don't deserve a seminar that was practically drafted for me."

"Oh, _you do_ deserve that." Prentiss teased, "How many women did you sleep with on Hoover's payroll before that happened?"

"Not too many, Hoover did die fairly early in my tenure. Sessions, now he's the ass who made it policy."

Prentiss shook her head, too baffled to come to terms with what Rossi was saying.

"That doesn't matter, anyway. He'll get over it, He probably went back to his own room…" Morgan mentioned, "I'm going to head up and get changed."

"I'll go check on him, then. Morgan, give me his phone, now." Hotch's hand extended, and Morgan happily handed it to him, the picture of Hotch sleeping on the jet proudly displayed as the wallpaper.

"I reset it for him, you know, to help cheer him up. It is one of his images." Morgan made sure to inform Hotch, just so he couldn't complain about the bullying, after all, it WAS a candid photo that REID took. Hotch was almost tempted to look through the images, but decided against it.

Morgan waited for Hotch to leave before saying, "Anyone else notice Reid packing a tent before he left? Who knew our boy genius was into humiliation."

"Oh please, he's just into Hotch's pink cowboy hat… the movie line up right now is Brokeback Mountain, Reid probably watched that last night before going to sleep." JJ corrected, chided even. Rossi was still bitter about the missed Scotch as he ordered up another.

"Ten bucks says Reid and Hotch make it right tonight, and that Reid doesn't walk right until this case is over." Rossi offered.

Prentiss shook her head, "No way, Reid's way too good at acting, he'll walk normal, but they'll definitely do something tonight, twenty on that."

JJ sighed, "I don't know, I think I'm going to take the sucker's bet and say they'll wait. Spence is just too much of a romantic to jump right in the sack."

"Jaje's probably right, besides, all bets should go through the booky-techie, since she'll slaughter us all if we don't get her in on the pool." Morgan paused, "I'm going with Jaje, in for ten." He dialed Garcia, explaining the poll.

"Oh, they'll totally be nailing each other, Reid will probably stay in bed and call out for the day, debate whether or not to fly back to Virginia early, but will ultimately opt to come in later that week, fifty on that."

The others looked at the phone, then the others and ponied in the cash, "If you're off even slightly, all that money comes back to us." Morgan disclaimed.

The next morning, Garcia was a very happy tech goddess with an online order for a new set of fashionable magenta stiletto boots on order courtesy of Zappos and the BAU sucker-train. Reid, also quite happy, was on his laptop looking for pink fetish-wear cowboy gear before realizing an intricately clever way of catching the unsub while he stalked his next victim.

End.


	5. 45 Where There's Smoke There's

Set 5: unconscious – ambulance - fate – nightmare

Aaron Hotchner always kept his phone by his side, whether day or night, and especially at night there were only a handful of reasons his phone would ring. At 4 AM, none of those reasons were good reasons, but most of them were tolerable.

After all, with his job, he learned to tolerate a great many deal of things. At 4 AM, seeing his phone ring instantly put Aaron into SSAIC Hotchner mode, because honestly, of all the reasons to be called at 4 AM, the most prevalent was always in the form of a case, one with a quickly-looming deadline, pardon the pun. So, when he answered the phone without looking at the caller ID with a stark, "Hotchner, here." He had not expected what came next.

He waved for several minutes, "Uh huh… right… when? And what exactly happened…?" He stole a glance of offensively red numbers lit against a black screen, "I can be there within ten minutes. Call 911."

Hotchner mode is a fast mode, emergency Hotchner mode made the Flash envious. Flying from corner to corner of his room, he had keys, wallet and credentials, shoes, and a jacket on to make him passable at the ungodly hour in the emergency capacities he was operating under. Under the two minutes it had taken him to dress and get out the door, not once did he realize just how frazzled he looked this time. Finally getting into the car and starting it up, he glanced into the rearview mirror, adjusting it. His eyes were red, his face pale, and he couldn't honestly say that was because he looked like this on any given 4 AM.

Having emergency flashers, while not technically supposed to be used for "personal" matters, were permitted in emergencies, and in this given instance, it was warranted. Also warranted was going 90 in an empty 30. Had there been less turns, he'd have taken it at an even faster clip, and within 8 minutes, just as Hotch had projected, he was in front of an apartment complex, ablaze. It was a very familiar apartment complex, he had been there earlier that evening, no less, when dropping off one Dr. Spencer Reid after an incredibly romantic dinner-and-a-show date.

Pure panic flooded Hotch's peripheral vision as he scanned the crowd looking for Reid, but he knew damn well that if Reid were there, he'd have called Hotch directly, and most definitely not a land-lord reaching emergency contacts. He saw the fire trucks, and dispersed firefighters around the street, some going into the blaze, some coming out, as minutes ticked by he saw more coming out than going in, finally he found the woman whom had called him, the woman that Reid had made him meet on two separate occasions, one on the pretext of changing his contact information, and the other on getting an additional key made. Hotch looked at his phone's dial history—18 unanswered calls had been dialed to speed-dial 2, speed-dial 1 being Jessica's, since that more often than not would be how he reached Jack. He hit send once more, begging the phone to be answered, a small explosion rocked through the third floor, glass rained outside the building, and a quick count across the remaining windows told him the answer he didn't want to hear. The phone didn't even offer to collect a voice message, it opted to say carrier is out of range.

"Spencer…" He put his hand over his mouth, covering the slight gape as he proceeded to silently hold in a choking sob, wet beads of saline tracked down his cheeks, and while Hotch knew Reid would be able to tell him the molecular differences between tears and sweat, and how what was falling across Hotch's cheeks most definitely had lysozyme and lacteal origins, he couldn't bring himself to care that he was crying in public. He found the landlord within a cluster of twenty or so tenants, seven of which were children hovering closely to their parents, fearfully. He made his way to her, "Mrs. Johnson!"

Mrs. Johnson looked up at the voice, she raised her hand before getting away from the group, "Mr. Hotchner? There you are!"

"Where's Reid—Spencer?" Hotchner insisted, he pointed to Spencer's blown out apartment window for emphasis. "Has ANYONE seen him?"

She shook her head then paused and looked at a group of three firefighters before grabbing Hotch's shoulder and dragging him over to them, "Excuse me, have any of you cleared apartment 3C?"

Underneath the full gear, streaked with black soot, Hotch couldn't tell the features of the firefighter, and certainly would never have been able to guess the gender. As the mask came up, a petite blond woman, maybe in her late 30s, spoke. "I cleared it, he's being worked on by the EMTs." She nodded toward a cordoned off corner, "The guy's unconscious, only found the one…"

Hotch's feet were moving before his brain gathered up all the words being spoken and translated, by time he had made the twenty-yard trek, he had spotted an EMT worker packing up his kit and loading up a full gurney. "Excuse me! Please wait! Who's in there…? Did you get his name?"

"Last name's Reid." The EMT worker offered before slamming the door shut, heading to the front.

"What hospital?" His heart sank and swelled at the same time, "How's he doing?"

"We're heading to George Washington." He hopped into the driver's seat before shutting the door and abruptly ending the conversation, hitting the lights as he started up the ambulance.

Hotch raced back to his car before speeding in the same direction. He was doing a damned good job of keeping up with the ambulance, lights wailing, but he was gradually losing his proximity, by time the ambulance was pulling into the ER entrance, he was 'parking' his car haphazardly in the private parking garage to the left of that entrance. Hotch ran into the ER, as awkward of a sight as it was for an adult man in sweat pants and a Star Trek The Next Generation t-shirt, FBI zip-up hoody and flip-flops to come running into anywhere shy of a college campus, he spotted a familiar figure by the mismatched set of socks adorning the feet, said feet disappeared with the gurney they were strapped to behind a double set of glass doors and a team of doctors joining in to the gaggle of bodies surrounding it.

Words from a nurse's station, whether it was gossip or something pertinent to the actual situation, roused a response from Hotch.

"Bad apartment fire, the EMTs said he stopped breathing, they finally got him on a ventilator, but they said he had a lot of smoke inhalation."

"Didn't he look like that guy…?" One of the younger nurses continued, "The one that little girl described? The one who was banging on all the doors?"

"Excuse me…" Hotch approached the nurses' station, "A little girl…? The man that was just brought in, Dr. Spencer Reid, I'm his lover. Do you know his status…? Is that little girl, who saw him, is she still here?"

The nurses looked at each other before back at him empathetically. "The little girl came in with her mom, her mom is still being treated, but she's with a nurse in the waiting room, if you're going to talk to her, try not to upset her."

Hotch nodded his thanks before hurrying off to the waiting room. Upon entering, he spotted a small girl with large brown eyes and tangles of brown hair in a sloppy, matted ponytail, her pajamas soiled with soot, and as she sat on the plastic blue chair with her knees tucked under her chin, trying to make her small frame even smaller in this setting, Hotch knew the approach to take.

He glanced down the hallway to a vending machine before digging through his pockets to extract 75 cents, perfect, just enough for a bag of candy. He quickly went to the machine and selected F7, also known as Milky Way bar, it was probably best to avoid possible nut allergies. He returned into the room and approached the girl, handing her the candy bar and pulling out his badge. "Hi. My name's Agent Hotchner, but you can call me Hotch. What's your name?"

"I'm Melanie." The little girl offered, taking the candy bar, her fingers fiddled with it before she started to open it.

"I hear you were at the apartment fire, my friend was there too. Do you live at that apartment?"

"Uh huh…"

"My friend lives there too, he lives in 3C. What about you, Melanie?"

"I live in 3A." The girl stopped working her hands, "You're friends with the man with the funny socks?"

"I am. Melanie, I heard a story, and I was wondering if you could tell me more. I heard that someone was banging on doors to get the people out, is that true?"

Melanie nodded, "The man with funny socks, he was running up and down the hall banging on the doors yelling 'Fire, Fire you gotta get everyone out…' but he was wearing a towel over his face, he looked weird."

"A towel…?"

"Yeah, it was wet." Hotch looked at her almost expectantly, "When I answered the door, he took the towel off and put it over my face, the hall was smoky. He told me I had to go out the fire escape because the stair-well was no good."

"So what did you do?"

"I woke up my mommy and daddy. My mommy took me out the fire escape, and daddy went back to help bang on doors."

"And what about Spencer, uh, my friend? Did you see what he did?"

The girl nodded, "He went back down the hall, he was banging on the neighbor's door."

Hotch nodded. "Thanks. Melanie, your mommy, you know she's going to be okay, don't you?"

She nodded, "Yeah, it's just, mommy has asthma."

"Melanie, where's your daddy now?"

"He went to talk to the doctors, he told me to wait here because this is the waiting room, and someone's supposed to wait here."

Hotch smiled softly at the little girl, "I guess you're right. Do you mind if I wait here for my friend, while you wait for your mommy?"

The little girl nodded.

It was about ten minutes before the little girl's dad came back, and about two hours after that before the doctors came for Hotch.

"Spencer Reid?"

Hotch stood up and approached, "How is he… is he going to make it?" His heart pounded in his chest, making it hard to hear. This was not the normal 7 AM routine for Hotch. He realized the doctor had faltered, reaching for his credentials he explained, "I'm his boss, and his emergency contact."

"Ah, right." The older gentleman extended a hand toward the door, "Spencer is going to need some rest, he took in a lot of smoke, but he's young, and he took preventative steps that saved his life."

Hotch turned his head, "What do you mean…?"

"He made a make-shift mask, it protected him from breathing in the super-heated chemicals, carbon monoxide still gets through, of course, so it isn't absolute protection. Spencer is in Exam Room 114, he's resting right now, but you can go see him if you'd like."

"Exam Room…?"

"We ran some panels, took blood work, x-rays, made sure he didn't get any burns, but from what we can tell, he passed out due to smoke inhalation, we might be able to release him today if he responds well to the oxygen treatment."

Hotch nodded, "Thank you, doctor."

"Not at all," The doctor left, and Hotch made his way to the exam room, spotting several nurses fawning over a flustered, red-faced Reid.

"Spencer…!" He was draping his arms across Reid possessively before he could think better of it, not like he would have. "Spencer, thank god! Are you alright?"

Reid smiled, "Hey Hotch… Exciting morning."

"What happened, anyway?" Hotch didn't mean to sound accusing, but the scare had probably robbed a good five years from his life, he thought he deserved answers for it.

"…From what I can tell? A meth-lab right under my nose didn't coat the walls with iodine…" Reid smiled, "No, I'm kidding…" Reid paused, "Right, that's probably not funny, I heard some strange crackling and went to investigate it and found a fire in the custodial closet it was probably electrical and then with all the cleaning components it acted as an accelerant, figured out it was a fire, so I started banging on doors to get the neighbors out."

"What about the fire alarms?" Hotch asked, almost upset about it.

"I pulled them but the electricity was wonky so they didn't sound. I called 911 but then my phone line went down."

"Your house line?"

Reid nodded, "My cell-phone's charge died. So, I soaked some towels in water and then began pounding on doors. I got two neighbors to bang on the lower floors, Marge from 3F, she took the second floor and Matt from 3E took the first floor, I didn't want to put them at more risk by going up to the top floor, so I wound up banging on the doors."

"…What about the neighbors in 3A?"

"I gave the little girl in there my mask, their apartment is right next the custodial closet, so I wanted them to get out fast, her mom's an asthmatic."

"What about Melanie's dad?"

"...What about him?"

"Didn't he go banging on doors?"

"He banged on 3B before I told him to get out of the place." Reid paused to think, "He DID get out, didn't he?"

"Yes, he did, I spoke with him and his daughter for a little bit in the waiting room."

Reid nodded, "I see." He smiled, "You know, I think it was fate that made me come back to my place…"

Hotch looked at Reid strangely, "How so?"

"Well, we've been dating for two years, and just shy of the first date, we've usually headed back to your place, or my place to spend the night or weekend… but last night, after the show I started to feel sick… I think that was fate. I think I was supposed to be there to help those people. Do you think I'm crazy for thinking that?"

Hotch shook his head, "No, but I bet Garcia would agree with you."

Reid smiled. "Hey, would you mind if I stayed at your place for a little bit, until I get my insurance money and find a new place, at least?"

Hotch contemplated but then shook his head, "I don't think that's the best of ideas."

Reid's face faltered for a moment as he listened to Hotch's answer, "Oh… right then… uh, it would look a bit suspicious, I guess… that, and then Jack…"

"My objection is the time limit." Hotch cut in, before his lover could tailspin into self-deprecation. Reid face lit up. "If you want to move in, now is probably as good of a time as any. We usually wind up staying over the other's for the weekend anyway."

Reid's glow, Hotch was unsure if it was the carbon monoxide making him red or if he was blushing at the proposition, but he concurred it was probably both.

"Reid, do you know who pulled you out of the fire…? Where you were?"

Reid tilted his head to the side, contemplating, "I was in the stair well, halfway between the third and second floor when I saw two firefighters, I think I passed out a little after that."

"I think that it was fate, too. After all, it made sure you came back to me okay, so it had to be good forces at work."

Fin.


	6. 46 Baby Steps

Set 6: Pain – lie – broken – secret

Everyone had a secret, and everyone lies eventually, Spencer knows this but it can't stop him from feeling guilty about it. Sitting across from Derek at the cafeteria as they ate sandwiches they both bought from the gourmet stand, Spencer couldn't help but feel that nagging feeling.

He and Hotch had thought about it for weeks, they had been dating for almost two years, but they had never out-right owned up to it. If Garcia and Kevin were so honest, it seemed foolish for them not to address the team. As it was, David Rossi already knew and was Hotch's confidante, yet the hang up had been telling the others. They hid it, there was no covering that up, Reid had said on several occasions that he was single but also not looking when Derek had asked him about it. Stake-outs and undercover investigations were awkward enough, he didn't want to add the awkwardness of him being a homosexual with feelings toward his boss on that list.

Reid realized the best way to start this was to take baby-steps though. Today was one of those milestones, he would come out to Derek. That had been the game plan, and as such, he invited Derek to lunch to chat. They all had plans to go drinking, and Morgan had been looking forward to it all week. So, after this, he'd suck it up, go on an even more strained drinking endeavor and then come Monday? Things should be back to normal, that was the theory.

The actual was by far not what he suspected.

"Hey, uh, Morgan… I've been meaning to say…"

"Mmm-mmm-mmm… Reid, tell me that isn't some fiiiiine soup right there…" He shouldered toward a particularly striking female junior agent, she was probably Island-Pacific, maybe even Hawaiian, her curves were full yet she looked distinctly Asian, yet simultaneously different.

"Uh, yeah… Morgan, I wanted to say that, well we've been friends for a while, right?"

"Man, if you want her, go and make a move. I'm just appreciating the view…"

"Morgan, that's not what this is about. Morgan, I'm gay. I wanted to tell you, I'm gay."

Morgan stopped smiling toothily at the woman, in fact, he just stopped smiling, he looked at Reid seriously, "Man, that's good. But don't play. Oh right, now you're going to say, 'And for the longest time I've had feelings for you… like that.' Right…?"

"No. I'm gay, but not for you." Reid said, firmly, precisely, measured. He did not measure the distance between Morgan's fist and his face, though, which maybe he should have contemplated, he probably should have sat more diagonally across Morgan than directly, but it was too late to think that now, as Reid fell from the opposite side of the bench onto the floor. Suddenly there were several eyes on them, Morgan standing up, arm fully extended at the same height and general area that Reid had been sitting in, and Reid, sprawled on the floor.

That stung like hell! Reid counted back to high school, and even to the situation with Dodd, and deduced Morgan had not in fact pulled his punch even slightly.

Derek Morgan did not _punch_ like a nine year old girl, either.

Staring up from the floor in complete shock, Reid watched the emotions play across Morgan's face realizing exactly what the hell had just happened. He completely underestimated the trauma that Morgan had gone through as an adolescent, and while he knew Morgan was alright with gays in general as regular members of society, maybe just maybe he wasn't down with his best friend being one, after all.

"Morgan…?"

"Don't." The man was pivoting on his heels and about to leave, "Morgan… I… uh… it was a joke…"

Morgan turned to look back at Reid, it looked like he finally took in the situation for what it was, "No, it wasn't. Who?"

"Who what?" _where when why_, Reid added in a mental parody, _and how_.

"You aren't gay for yourself, so who are you gay _with_?" He was fuming, "He corrupted you, didn't he?"

"What…? No! No, Morgan it's nothing like that… I mean… ow…" Reid rubbed his nose, he realized something important in that instance as a blotch of red against creamy white skin made itself known, "…I think you just broke my nose, man."

"I can't deal with this right now…" Morgan walked out of the cafeteria, leaving Reid high, but most definitely not dry. Packing several napkins to his nose, he dumped his half-eaten sandwich and took a walk to the street side where he hailed a cab (and after about seven drive-bys got one), to a clinic. He texted Hotch that he tripped and landed on his face, that he had to run to the doctor's, he back copied it to Morgan.

Sitting in the overly bright fluorescent-lit waiting room of the clinic, Reid prayed that he had not just broken his one most meaningful friendship with the closest thing he had to a peer. Morgan was his guy-friend, not a guy he competed with, not a guy who sat behind him in class and asked for his homework or notes, but an actual friend who had been there for him that he was there for too. Hotch was a different story, obviously, and Gideon and even Rossi in his own respects while they had some form of friendliness to them, it was more similar to mentorship or surrogate father-figures (well, maybe not Rossi).

After lunch, Reid had returned to the office, only half an hour late, made sure he was busy with case-loads that prevented him from turning around to face Morgan, who was there, if only in body, and away from the prying eyes of Hotch, Rossi, JJ, Prentiss, and Garcia. Reid swallowed back heavily, "Uh, Morgan… listen, what I said…?"

"I shouldn't have taken it out on you. It wasn't your fault, you were corrupted. And when you tell me by who, we'll sort everything out. Sorry I hit you."

"Uh… you didn't… I tripped." Reid reminded him of the official line, defeated. "I'll still see you tonight for drinks, right?"

Morgan nodded a bit crisply, "Wouldn't miss it for the world. You should bring your _boyfriend_."

The heat in his words were enough to make Reid uncomfortable, but he had to continue, "Morgan, are WE still cool? All the rest of it aside?"

Morgan took several minutes to answer, so much time in fact that Reid was starting to think that was his answer, "Yeah. We're still cool, if that's okay by you."

"You realize I'm not going to turn ungay, right?"

"Yeah, I get that. I'm still pissed at your _man_ though." Reid groaned inwardly, but he'd take this as a step in the right direction.

He whispered to himself, "Baby-steps…"

Reid felt like he was in a bad joke stepping inside the bar, it was a room full of profilers and they all knew there was an elephant in the room… but they each saw a different elephant. Hotch had managed to grab Reid first, pulling him to the bathroom for a lengthy conversation trying to find out exactly what 'floor' did this to his nose, and what disciplinary actions were warranted and why. Reid's response had been, "It's always that first step, it had a troubled childhood, it's mother was a cinder block, it's father was from the wrong side of the track-lighting."

Unpleased with the uncooperativeness, Hotch just seethed, dropping it for now to prevent an issue from coming up with the others. While he doubted anyone else would buy that same bullshit story about Reid tripping, he couldn't figure out who Reid was protecting or why. Until he did know, he'd just have to be the unpleased boss about an insubordinate subordinate, and be a grumpy lover in private that his lover wouldn't confide in.

While Hotch had grabbed Reid, Rossi and Garcia had swarmed on Morgan. "What the hell did you do?"

"What…?"

"Oh don't you 'what' me mister!" Garcia snipped, crossing her arms, "Why did you hit Reid?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"He came out, and you punched him, and Kevin was three tables over to prove it." Garcia said, "If Reid's going to keep it under wraps that's his choice, but you are GOING to answer to me about this! I thought you didn't have a problem with gays!"

"I _don't_!"

"Then you have a problem with Reid?" Rossi reasoned.

"Yeah, I do! He's my best friend and I never knew he was hitting for the other team! We've shared rooms before, he's been at my house…"

"Still sounding like a problem with the gay and not the Reid." Garcia said.

"Baby-girl, I don't care what strangers do, but it's REID. I've tried to hook that boy up! He's probably the closest thing I have to a best friend right now, thanks to work, and he's gay. He never told me, never hinted, and then poof he's gay."

"Poof." Garcia crossed her arms, fuming, "And he's in a serious relationship, so it's the same as every time you've…"

"Don't equate Reid to being a girl, Garcia it isn't fair to him, he's gay but he's spoken for. He's not straying, he's not looking, and he's not interested in you. Just shy of him not looking at the same PEOPLE as you do when you're in a bar, there's really no difference, and honestly, even if he was straight he wouldn't be interested in the same girls as you anyway. The point is, Reid is the same Reid that he was before you knew he was gay so what the hell is your problem?"

"Carl Buford is my problem." Morgan hissed, "And that name might not mean anything to you, but it does to me… I just wish Reid would have talked to me…"

"Morgan, just because Reid's gay doesn't mean he's a VICTIM, he wasn't coerced and I'm actually really sure he's happy. Why can't that be enough for you?" Garcia offered, much more supportively. Rossi, oblivious to the Buford case just shot him a sideways glare.

"If the kid hasn't folded to Hotch, whatever the hell his reason is for protecting your stupid ass, I won't go against his act of forgiveness, but if you want to keep your job I recommend wiping that guilty look off your face before Hotch figures you for it."

Reid and Hotch returned to the group with a set of drinks, Reid held three, Hotch held four, Reid handed one to Morgan, JJ and took his, Hotch handed over the Scotch to Rossi, a cabernet to Prentiss, an apricot sour to Garcia and took his own drink himself. Garcia was fussing over Reid, chiding him and calling him her poor boy-wonder, JJ was somehow suckering Prentiss into a game of darts, and Reid was shooting guilty looks at Rossi that confused Hotch.

"Morgan, any idea what's up with Reid? He's been acting strange ever since he got back from lunch." Hotch glanced at the younger man who seemed to go a bit stiff.

"Hotch, do you, uh… think there's something _to_ Reid."

Hotch sipped his drink, "I don't get what you mean…?"

"I mean, do you think he might be a bit… funny?"

Contemplating, Hotch gave a safe answer, "Some of his jokes are okay, but usually they run pretty esoteric."

"No, no, I don't mean funny ha-ha, I mean funny…" he dropped his wrist. "…Funny."

"You think Reid's gay?" Hotch raised an eyebrow, his own mind running in circles. Did this mean Reid was implementing his plan on coming out to the team or had he and Reid somehow slipped up in front of Morgan? Was Morgan piecing together that he and Reid were…?

"He didn't say not to talk about it with others. Yeah, he told me he's gay… when I find out who the hell is putting his hands on him though… I'll…"

Hotch downed his drink and walked back over to Reid, grabbed his arm and pulled him back to the bathroom, leaving Morgan blinking.

"Shit!" Maybe telling Hotch had been a bad idea after all.

Reid was shocked as his drink sloshed around, eventually making half of it hit the floor or his alternating pant leg as he made the walk back to the private stall. Hotch pushed Reid inside and locked the door. "Morgan did this to you?"

Reid looked at the floor, it was spectacularly interesting.

"Reid!" Hotch tilted his face up forcing eye-contact, "Reid, did Morgan hit you?"

Sighing in exasperation, Reid said, "The first step is a bitch, I thought I told you." Hotch knew Reid wasn't going to tell SSAIC Aaron Hotchner what the hell happened, because SSAIC Aaron Hotchner had to tow the company line, "As your lover… and not as your boss, tell me please Reid."

"Hotch, you're both, you can't separate that. Do you trust me?"

"Of course I do…"

"Then trust that whatever the situation is, I am handling it, and that I tripped. It won't happen again."

"Until you tell him you're with me, and then he'll either go to Strauss or destroy his own career doing something stupid…"

"That isn't going to happen."

"You're not planning on telling him, are you? You do realize he is now going to be watching every little thing you do."

Reid smiled sympathetically, "No, he won't be. I tripped, Hotch. I'll be careful next time, now, stop pulling me off to the bathroom, Rossi might start to think we're having a quicky."

Hotch didn't want to correct Reid, he also didn't want to send Reid home alone, but that didn't change the fact that he had to get back to Jack, and that Reid had wanted to go home instead of to Aaron's place, citing the banged up nose as being possibly upsetting to Jack, and that having a weekend between the Hotchner men wasn't going to kill either of them.

Hotchner knew it was a bullshit line, but he couldn't not get Jack, so he left. He knew what Reid's weekend was upon calling him at 4AM Saturday night and getting an answer. Hotch had woken up, unable to sleep, worried about Reid. Reid hadn't gone to sleep, he had in fact been crying, probably for the duration of Satur_day_, and possibly Friday night once he had gotten home.

The realization was that Hotch had took the coward's route by making Reid come out to his friend by himself, so he decided there was one way to fix this, Reid plan be damned. So, after blatantly bribing Reid, he finally convinced him to come out to dinner, through basic extortion, he had also convinced Morgan to give up his Sunday off to come to a team dinner. Well, Reid, Morgan and Hotch were on them team, close enough.

Reid's eyes had become saucers when he spotted Morgan at the table with Hotch, waiting for the others to show up, supposedly, but with two wine glasses down in front of Hotch and a drinking rate of about 1 per half-hour, and Morgan having four in front of him… which was an indicator of mood, Reid realized Morgan and Hotch had been having a _chat_. He debated texting Hotch that something came up, and was going for his phone when Hotch waved him over.

His shoulders shrank. He was unsure of what land-mine obstacle course Hotch had laid out for him, but a look in Morgan's face told him not much more than kicked-puppy… Hotch probably had chewed him out in an unofficial capacity. Unofficial, because no official evidence was coming up ever, _ever_, as far as Reid was concerned.

"Morgan, let me introduce you to Reid's boyfriend." Reid's eyes went large as Hotch said that, Morgan began looking around.

"You mean you KNEW about him… about the bastard putting his hands on…"

Reid put his hand over his face.

"Where…? Where IS the son of a…"

Hotch pointed to himself, Morgan deflated.

"You're shitting me…?" His voice wavered as rage took it up and down a few octaves, he tried to steady it, "You know I'm going to Strauss…"

Reid let out a sigh, "If you do, as much as it would suck for me to leave the bureau, I have other job prospects. It won't make this go away. We've been together for two years."

Morgan put a hand to his face. "What…?"

"Two. Just about, anyway. Next weekend." Reid reminded, Hotch nodded solemnly.

"Even if Reid didn't, I've rubbed elbows with enough people to get us both through it relatively unscathed. Truthfully, the only thing that would do is put a glass ceiling over Reid and my own career paths, but since I don't think I'll be transferring out of the BAU any time soon, the real question is whether or not you'll stay in now that you know. By the way, Garcia will assure that your paperwork is halted if you're a dick about this."

Reid's eyebrow rose.

"You broke his fucking nose." Hotch glowered. Reid half expected him to add in an, '_I liked that nose!'_ or something.

"This is not cool, and it is not an ideal working situation." Morgan took a few breaths, "You're taking advantage of him and you should know better. I get it, your wife died, you're lonely… but seriously? Reid? That's abuse of power and you damn well know it!"

Reid buried his face in his hands, "Morgan! It's NOT like that!"

"Like hell it isn't, you might not see the forest to see the trees, but what the hell else do you expect me to think when a man more than ten years your senior is fucking you?"

Reid knew that got their table looks from several other guests.

"Morgan, it's mutual between us. Believe it or not, we have an equal relationship, too. I'll spare you the details, but suffice to say we're both very happy, actually, all three of us are, since Jack is also a part of the picture."

Morgan shook his head, "I can't believe you, Hotch. That's sick, no offense Reid. Are you trying to mess your kid up?"

Hotch clutched and unclutched his napkin in anger, keeping himself from decking his subordinate. "Morgan, watch where you're stepping."

"There was a reason I didn't want this conversation to happen." Reid finally said, he took his glass, downed it, then looked at Morgan then Hotch. "Morgan, anal sex—the process of repeatedly putting a pen-"

WHAM! Reid's chair fell back, Morgan was holding his collar, Hotch was standing up approaching him.

"I know EXACTLY what it is!"

"Morgan, do you know the difference between sex and making love? What about dating a person and loving a person? Do you think I'm so stupid that I can't tell the difference myself? Do you? Do you think I'd LET myself be a victim after what my life has been like? Do you honestly think I'd be with Hotch because I felt lonely…? No. I'm with HOTCH because of how he makes ME feel, which by the way is alive and worth-while. Do you know when I started to fall for Hotch? Before I ever boarded the train."

Morgan took a moment to even try to remember what train Reid was talking about.

"Before he even told me 'I'll see you when you get back' I liked him more than what was expected. I sat on that for a long time, he and I would stay after hours and talk about a lot of stuff, cases sometimes but sometimes about personal stuff too. The point is, he understands and gets me, he loves me, and I understand get and love him. We're a matching set and we work. You're my best friend, I wanted you involved enough in my life to understand that about me too, if you can't appreciate or get it, fine. We're done, if you can tolerate it and get your head out of your own ass and NOT be selfish, that would be great. Now I'm sitting down, ordering a steak and if EITHER of you give me or each other shit, I'll fill the both of your houses with popped pop-corn like they did in Real Genius. Now shake hands and sit down."

Morgan and Hotch sat down at that, Hotch was first to order a refill of his drink and retain some dignity and normality, apparently Reid had gone off on Hotch within their two-year tenure after all, that made Morgan relax slightly to know Reid stood up for himself, but he still wasn't comfortable with this. But honestly, was it his place to need to be?

End.

A/N: This may be continued in a NON-CHALLENGE part, but that's as of yet to be decided. Please R & R! That will help me decide.


	7. 47 Fate

Having a degree in Philosophy gave Reid the background to realize that every argument had no less than four distinct answers, all of which could be perceived as correct depending on whom was judging it, of course there was the in favor, then there was the against, then there was the grey both, and then there was the pure screw-with-you omit option, also known as the null option.

As he sat there marinating in blood he debated the concept of fate and was wondering what he was more likely to side with. Had fate after all these years been a kind mistress, a Lady Luck, or was she a cruel and fickle bitch hell-bent on making his misery and misfortune her own amusing game? Was it a combination or was fate an unrealistic concept built by the human mind to shield itself from the reality that numbers and statistics really were the root of the universe? He used numbers enough to his favor to easily accept this null hypothesis, yet it seemed cheaper that way. Right now, he wanted to believe things weren't cheap but beautiful, if not now in some distant time, future or past, it didn't matter.

Reid opted with a kind mistress, after all, after the hell he went through he was led to the love of his life Aaron Hotchner, that thought alone stung like a shot to the chest. He looked at the bullet wound again and gulped, fuck irony really wasn't as enjoyable when it happened to yourself.

"Just hold on… the EMTs are on their way!"

Reid looked around, the world moved slower, his eardrums thrummed in time to his rapidly escalating heartbeat. Today was the worst day of his life as of yet, and he remembered Georgia full and well, damn it!

"Don't you dare close your eyes, think about us, think about Jack, think about…" It was rare for him to have a hard time communicating, after all with a sharp mind and the sense of a profile, a seasoned profiler could talk their way out of anything. He hoped at least, it would be swell to cheat death today. "…Think about that light-up butt plug, because I swear to god if you leave me, I'm burying you with that IN you! And you know how!"

That gained several strange looks from fellow agents as they watched the scene, unsure of what to do beside fret and control the crowds, after all, of everyone on the team, only Reid was a _doctor_. Even Garcia refused to give herself that title…

"Please, Aaron I can't lose you… please just wake up…" Reid pressed his hand further into the bullet wound, red soaked up past his elbows at this point, but more disconcerting than the ruined shirt was the ruined patch of pavement that now had a diameter of a meter saturated in red, sticky fluid.

"…Please wake up!"

The ambulance loaded Reid and Hotch into the back while paramedics began cutting the shirt from the unconscious form on the stretcher.

"…Reid, I don't know what I'd do if you don't wake up… please, don't make me find out, open those eyes! That's an order!"

Aaron Hotchner was not a fan of fate, for fate was never some merciful being. Lady Misfortune made habit of spitting in the eye of many a good man and Aaron was quite sick of her interventions in his life. This was perhaps the last straw, coming home from a long day of work… or that had been his story at least for Reid who had left the office at a reasonable hour of 7… okay, so reasonable for BAU members, he had gone to a store to pick up a special order after borrowing five of Rossi's files that 'were due by tomorrow, I swear I'll make it up to you for missing dinner Spence!'

Getting home, pawing the ring he hoped to convince his young lover to wear for the rest of his life, was it so horrible to wish that THAT would be longer than ten fucking minutes? Aaron had seen Spencer going to the mail box just as a car drove past him from the corner, the car was swirving slightly, the operator of the car busier finding his cell phone in his brief case than watching the road, or his mail box, or the collateral damage of him hitting that mail box and the body immediately adjacent to it.

In horror he watched Spencer fling back two yards, tumble three times and stop on the grass in angles no body was meant to lie in comfortably.

He'd have shot the son of a bitch if he'd tried to run, Aaron was thankful at this instance that Jack was at a summer sleep away camp for the weekend. It was normally a day camp, what he did in the mean-time between the gap school gave parents to work with come summer, and when they had offered a sleep-over for the first two nights of the start of each month, Hotch thought 'bonus!' because his son would have fun and he could have a romantic date with his lover of three years without being in a cheap hotel between murdered, raped, or missing people. The novelty had yet to wear off come the second 'date' in the two months since the program began.

He prayed Reid would open his eyes as the EMT began to open up his shirt, Reid always became focused when Hotch would undress him, he'd only done it seven times… once when Reid had fallen so soundly asleep after a long, long case that Hotch didn't have it in him to wake him, so he had tried to politely (and probably a bit paternally) care for him and change him out of an uncomfortable shirt. Reid stayed crimson in the cheeks for a day.

Other times had been much less noble, a few times had just been him alone at night with a sleeping Reid in bed next to him, either too exhausted to have sex, or spent from already having sex, and he wanted to see his chest a bit more, to watch Reid's nipples and chest change directions, bare, as air filled and emptied his lungs beneath them.

Reid's eyes were stubbornly shut, so Aaron took to bribery. "Open your eyes, I swear, we can convert the garage into a library… but only if you wake up… please, Spence, please oh god don't you leave me…"

It was the worst nightmare Reid had ever had, watching Hotch die in front of him, and only after seeing it did he realize it had to be a lie. The world was still running with some semblance of order, gravity still worked, trees weren't lit of fire… and while that doesn't sound so amazing, the hell on earth that would be Hotch dying in front of Reid guaranteed to him that this couldn't be real. He just knew, the world would be affected if it were true.

Illogical as the thought was, that was what he thought as his eyes shot open, he felt cold, his hands were clammy and he was sure it was due to the horrible nightmare until he felt something hard shove into the crook of his elbow and then his vision go exceptionally fuzzy.

It became so blurry there was a point where Reid realized it had blurred back into his nightmare, except this time Hotch was alright… this nightmare was a flashback that would accompany withdrawal of a certain class of narcotics that Reid was certain he black-listed on every living will, power of attorney document, and conversation he had with paramedics, nurses, doctors, interns, and friends if the topic arose.

There was a bare light bulb, a chair, and a stink that permeated everything. This time the scent was wrong though, it wasn't what it was supposed to be… it was sickly sweet, like ether, or other anaesthetic gases doctors would use to keep a patient under during a surgery.

Realization hit Reid with the sheering force of a zippy blue two-door Z4 roadster, with black leather interior and BMW 4EVA Virginia plates- Hotch was fine, HE was the one in surgery, and with the imagery of such an exacting measure, Reid doubted he was shot, either.

His body relaxed, he noticed the soft sound of bleeps in the back of his mind seemed to slow into a lulling rhythm.

Waking up was hard, but finally, finally after the smell of ether disappeared, the chair had company, he wasn't just staring at hell, he was staring at Hotch sitting there looking at him expectantly. "Open your eyes, god, Spencer… you just have to!"

And he did, because ultimately, Reid would rather do anything for Hotch including chewing off his own hand then stay in that room all alone to wait, he was just happy that wasn't the case, this request seemed to offer rather pleasant consequences, such as a garage-library by the sound of the bribery Hotch was reiterating.

Swollen, puffy lids opened, it was much, much harder than Reid anticipated, but he finally got them open and eyes adjusted enough to see a familiar blur… Hotch seemed to realize instantly that Reid couldn't see, because there was blurry movement, and then something was approaching his eyes and then he could see Hotch's arms in perfect clarity pull back, glasses deposited upon the bridge of his nose.

"I was hit by a car… getting the mail."

"Yeah, and the guy who did it is at the station."

Reid nodded, "I still have all my kissable parts…?"

Hotch's smile was broken, it hurt to smile now, but he did it anyway, "Yeah… you're all still there, plus some metal."

Reid tried to concentrate, think of what ached to realize what had to go where, "What did they do…?"

"Your leg… they said the bone shattered, same one as before. Also, you're probably going to want a hair-cut. They had to screw in some plates…"

Reid looked horrified, "They what…?"

Hotch did something he never thought he'd do, he handed Reid of all people a mirror in his hospital suite.

Reid examined the left parietal region of his skull, and the gaping lack of hair there. "I see… 12 staples, wow… I guess I just became a hat-guy over night."

Hotch choked back the wince, "Reid, it doesn't matter… I'm just so glad you're alive… you had me so scared."

"Sorry about that…" Reid mumbled, embarrassed, he really did have a bullseye on his back… maybe he should take back his opinions about fate being a loving thing. He wiggled his left hand, it felt strangely heavy. Was this the anaesthetics or was he suffering a type of paralysis…? Reid silently freaked out before he saw his hand, his eyes went large. On his left ring finger there was a ring he definitely didn't remember putting on today or ever for that matter…? "Aaron… what's this…?"

Aaron smiled, "You know what they say, what happens in Vegas…"

"Aaron, what IS this…?"

"It's a promise from me to be in your life for as long as we have to give each other, I must demand at least another twenty years."

"I'd let you negotiate in even longer, if you sweeten the deal… what was that about a garage-library?" Reid smiled, glowing, even if he did have raccoon-eye bruising.

"Spencer, marry me."

"Of course."

Finito


	8. 52 Schadenfreude

circumstances-stressed-weekend-goal

Given the circumstances, Hotch thought that if he and his coworkers survived until Friday, that it would be the mark of a good week. It had in fact become his goal to make it to tomorrow. Hotch wondered if some gremlin (from Reid's depictions, this mythical creature looked a lot like Strauss) had settled upon the BAU. It was already Thursday morning, and so far each member of the team had had their ass handed to them one way or another.

It started with Garcia being dumped by Kevin upon his discovering her Photoshopped adventures; over the years, the ones that had explicitly high quality and had over no less than the last 6 years gotten at least each team mate in hot water with _someone_ when discovered. It seemed like fair justice, the source of many of their miseries and office rumors finally getting caught in her own trap. Apparently Kevin was devastated that she had gone to a movie premier and met some huge star in spandex or another, and was so hurt not to be invited or even TOLD of the event until finding it… well, Hotch didn't need to recap the drama, after all, Garcia had done that for everyone's benefit eight collective times to date.

That afternoon, they had been called in for a consult at a local station, so, JJ relayed the information and then went ahead… to be surprised that the "station" was not a police "station" but a radio station, had almost been cornered into giving a profile that was completely unmade and had angered no less than three mothers of victims. It took her two days to smooth things over enough to even leave her office to catch lunch, insult to injury, her work-load tripled in influx thanks to the publicity.

It had put the team down in man-power, their two non-profiling staffers were distracted and unable to assist, and when other work came in, in the form of a real consult, Rossi and Morgan had jumped ship to take it over the whumping hum of speakers from Garcia's cave as she played break-up music, which translated to Imogen Heap at 0.3 decibels shy of deafening. Hotch was almost certain Rossi had managed to manifest the interview from the ethers just to get the hell away from her office since his was the closest in proximity to hers (as far as sound waves traveled at least!)

They had been in a fender-bender. Morgan's shoulder dislocated and Rossi wrecked his car. Monday had not been a good day by any means.

Tuesday, Garcia had opted to use glitter as some strange voodoo-ritual substitute, laying trails of it before her door. She said it kept the unsparkly out, that it would purify her haven, it seemed to work well for her, because Morgan took her being broken up from Kevin as the chance to ask her out on a real date. Crying had been involved, mostly from Garcia, but Morgan had also indefinitely cried as she landed a vice grip-strong hug around his injured shoulder that was still rather tender from the wreck.

Rossi, renting a BMW, made mentions of car shopping to Prentiss, and then the next round of bad luck started. Still down at least one blond liaison, Prentiss was taking in some of the call volume. Her desk had two towers of file-folders precariously hanging about them. This, while in and of itself is a regular occurrence, is not typically deemed fit for being labeled as bad-luck. Bad luck is when the lights cut out while Reid was walking in with his own stack of files, his nose buried in one, suddenly finding himself unable to see, tripping over Prentiss's extended chair, flying into the pile of files, knocking everything over, hitting himself in the groin on the edge of the desk and under the chin, biting his tongue and managing to black out from it all. Prentiss had seen the stack of files sway, and then splay on top of Reid who was already out for the count when the lights came back on within thirty seconds. Insult to injury, Reid's coffee that had been accompanying him and his files landed on her, her files, and her brand new white Coach purse. Since Prentiss only immediately registered the down paperwork (then the down Reid), she hadn't soaked the leather in time to get the stain out, effectively ruining her new $400 purse.

Reid was recovering for the rest of the day on Hotch's couch with a very bruised hubris and swollen lump on his jaw.

The day ended and they all went home, the next day, a still-sore Reid had brought Prentiss flowers to make up for destroying her purse and files. The flowers had been a sweet gesture, the allergic reaction to being stung by a wayward bee that also liked Prentiss's flowers had made the team's tally of emergency room visits surpass their yearly quota. Reid spent the rest of the day again hiding in Hotch's office feeling horrible and ranting about how to make it up to Prentiss, especially now that flowers were out. Hotch had recommended chocolates, and Reid had quickly mentioned not wanting to COURT her, but to apologize to her.

Hotch hadn't even known Prentiss was allergic to bees. He had noticed the week was turning into one from hell, though. His own work load had been slowly notched up to secret 80 hour work-load, normally he tried to get out with 70 to 72. He didn't mention it to Reid, since Reid was partly the cause, well… as fair as it was to put it like that, but that had affected it. Compounding the issue, Reid being in his office was a distraction, albeit a pleasant one. He didn't want to chase his lover out of his office, he wanted it to be a safe-haven, also, he was pretty certain Reid's testicle still hadn't descended after taking the hard hit earlier in the week.

His turn to have a bit of bad luck came when Strauss entered, demanding a report "due last week" that Hotch was absolutely positive was to be due next week. Digging through the piles as the bitch berated him and sent daggers at Reid for being in his office on his couch "lazing about" had put her in a mood, and so when Hotch produced the paperwork proving she had her timeline wrong, and then the finished file, she didn't storm out but started to rant about work-ethic among the team, sixty percent of the time glaring at Reid specifically. Hotch rubbed his brow, Reid looked like such a kicked puppy, but simultaneously he didn't want to bring her wrath solely onto himself. It didn't matter, it wasn't fair for her to be going on about it like she was.

"Excuse me, ma'am, did you still need something? Because if you don't, as you can see we're very busy this week. Dr. Reid here is being kind enough to assist with sorting through my files, and I'd prefer it if you didn't distract him."

Erin Strauss had left the office in a huff and as far as Hotch was concerned he swore she was thinking up plots of revenge. Hotch's ass-handing had not come from Erin Strauss, though. No, that was something that occurred in a cyclic pattern approximating every three months or so. His ass was good-and-proper handed to him immediately after she left when Reid stood up indignantly, "I'm not your fucking secretary! Why would you make me out to be one?"

Hotch being a deer in the headlights was not normal. Hotch not being able to back-pedal fast enough to prevent Reid from leaving in a huff with a swaggered exaggerated walk, and entering pixie-land (also referred to as Garcia's cave) and continuing to work there… well, that and being blown off for dinner and make-up sex that night, that had been ass-handing enough.

It was around noon on Thursday and Hotch wondered if he really had angered Reid that much? Did he need to buy flowers, Benedril just in case, and chocolates (since he WAS trying to court his boyfriend)? He hadn't seen Reid at the office yet, but had presumed he was avoiding him in Garcia's office. When he checked, Garcia was adding more piles of fluffy trinkets to ward off bad mojo, yet still seemed to be failing miserably at it, though Imogen Heap was no longer on the play-list, instead a handful of annoying viral videos of Kevin's revenge were popping up on her monitor forcing her to abandon the fluffy trinket project and fortify her firewall instead.

He decided not to add additional burden on the furious looking blond, and opted to find Morgan, maybe he had an idea as to where Reid was hiding out if not in the cave. Morgan had mentioned not seeing Reid come in, and when he realized his desk was virtually untouched, he decided to suck it up and call. It was work related, Reid would answer… as long as he could, and if he didn't, Hotch wouldn't feel so bad about using company resources to GPS-track him to an exact location and find him.

Reid picked up on the third ring, pain obviously marking his voice.

"Reid…? What's wrong, where are you?"

Reid gulped out, "In the hospital…" Hotch knew that Reid was two-parts hurt, three-parts embarrassed.

"Is this about what happened earlier this week…?"

"Yeah. Um, listen… about last night, I uh, I didn't mean to blow you off… but it got really bad, I almost blacked out when driving there so I went to the ER instead. I had to have surgery… I'm actually in recovery right now."

Hotch's eyes were large, "What…? How…? Why?"

"Ever hear of testicular torsion? It can occur when the spermatacord twists and the blood supply is compromised… statistically, it occurs most frequently in adolescent boys, and is more likely among twelve percent of the male population that present with an anatomical abnorm-ow… Hotch, can we talk later?"

"Of course, just rest up." Hotch was at a loss for words. With another agent in the hospital, he really wondered if this weekend was going to get here or if the BAU would collectively explode by Friday. He explained to the curious team members that Reid took a sick day and wasn't sure when he'd be up to coming back in. He left out the part about the testicular twisting and surgery, but he did mention Reid was at the hospital.

That had been the tipping point for Hotch. Stress straining his face, he closed the door to his office, locked the door, closed the blinds and proceeded to make dozens of phone calls until three things were solidified. First, flowers and chocolates to Reid's recovery suite due there within the hour; second, that the BAU would have Friday issued off for an in-group meeting outside the office; and third, that the in-group meeting had a place to be held—which thanks to Sean Hotchner being a favorite of a chef that recently expanded into DC, Hotch had swung a swank restaurant and a discounted price. It also had a banquet-area that was unused in day-time hours and was thus reserved for them. The mass email with instructions went out by 4 that afternoon, and once it had, and a handful of replies, most of which read:_ Really? Seriously really? We can end this hell-week early? REALLY?_ He set to doing his desk work and then by 9PM, called Reid.

"Spencer, how are you holding up?"

"With four stitches and gauze. Are you getting out of work now?"

"Yeah, I just left the office… are you still at the hospital, I could swing by…" Hotch turned onto his road. While going to the hospital was a high priority, he needed to check in on Jack.

"I got your flowers and chocolates, are you making fun of me?" He could tell Spencer was smiling as he said it, it was in his tone. "Trying to woo a man who just had a testicle worked on, that's the mark of a sadist you know. You're just lucky I can think of other things we can do."

Hotch's face ran the gamut of intrigued to perplexed, most perplexing was coming to his driveway to see Spencer sitting on the stoop. He disconnected the phone.

"I can't be at my place by myself, mind if I stay the weekend? I hear we have a team-building exercise planned for Friday and then a whole weekend off."

Hotch smiled, the unnerving stress of the week gone with that prospective weekend of being locked in his house with his lover. "Sounds like a plan."

Fin.


	9. 53 Meet up in the Conference Room in 3

Meet up in the Conference Room in Three

Within thirty-seven seconds, the atmosphere in the BAU shifted from comfortable to miserable to hell-hath-no-fury-like-Spencer-Reid-scorned.

Aaron had called Spencer into the conference room, and made the erroneous assumption that Spencer had locked the door, that he had an idea about what exactly Aaron was thinking. He wasn't in Hotch mode, and he could have sworn Spencer wasn't in Reid mode… so, he just assumed Spencer realized he was called in as a lover, not a subordinate… and thus had reasons to lock the door.

He had pulled Spencer in for an intimate kiss, cupping his ass, squeezing it softly, yet enough to get a 'click' out of it—wait, asses don't click, doors do—Hotch spun around as he felt Reid stiffen beneath his mitigations.

As the others came in waiting for a case briefing, which SSA Dr. Spencer Reid had OBVIOUSLY thought SSAIC Aaron Hotchner was calling him in for, instead of, say, random office sex… Reid slapped Hotch firmly across the face. Hotch just blinked daftly, Reid strawberry-red in the face, ears, neck… and despite it tying for redness with Hotch's cheek, Hotch couldn't help but think Reid still looked far more delicious than any strawberry he'd ever eaten before.

Reid sputtered, stammered and choked out something about Hotch pranking him, them, and getting more and more flustered until he opted to leave the building. Three hours later he came back, deflated and shy. Morgan was the first to tease him about being outted by Hotch… about how Reid's first reaction was to slap a man instead of deck him… to which Hotch boomed behind him, materializing from his office when he saw Reid return.

That was when Reid had said, "It doesn't count when you out each other. That just makes it an announcement."

End.


	10. 54 Sushi Deluxe

Hotch had never suspected that those color posters he'd stared at in restaurants and cafeterias were more than crudely done caricatures of what people looked like when choking, but after Morgan pranked Reid by informing him that wasabi was best eaten in large chunks, Hotch quickly realized he underestimated those artists.

Reid had taken the mouthful of wasabi courtesy of Morgan's dicketry, and proceeded to ruin the lunch experience of the three agents and several other restaurant-goers.

The youngest of the three reacted violently to the joke. Eyes watering, mouth watering, in fact not only was it watering it was drooling as spit slid down his face and he started to gasp trying to breathe and not being able to do such. Morgan was pointing, laughing at Reid in his horror, not seeing that Reid wasn't reacting to wasabi in pain from eating something unsettling but in fact choking.

Reid's flailing his own fist into his chest several times clued Morgan in though, and the man's face fell hard. The youngest looked so desperate to catch even a tail-end of a breath but just couldn't. Hotch had wrapped his arms around Reid before the other seemed to react to him moving, still pounding his own chest trying to clear the airway himself. His chair knocked back as Hotch stood him up and added a forced thrust into his diaphragm in the process. Once, twice, three times, four, five and six—sixth was the charm. The partially dissolved wasabi flew onto the table, Reid was gasping, pulling his face to his knees, a recovery position to ease in more air and keep him from passing out from low oxygen levels, or from being visibly recognized and syncope of being noticed in such a mortifying way, either way, Hotch had gained applause as the onlookers were impressed by his heroic gesture.

His hand went to the small of Reid's back. "Come on, lets get you to the bathroom, you can freshen up…"

Reid closed his eyes and nodded his head emphatically happy to escape that horrifically embarrassing scene. Hotch shot Morgan daggers warning him not to follow, the other was dumb-struck for only a moment more before he began apologizing profusely.

"Reid, man… I swear to god, I didn't realize, I'm so sorry man… so sorry! Oh god, are you…"

Reid held up his hands warningly, "I don't want to hear it. Just know two things- one, Garcia WILL hear of this, and two revenge will be swift and merciless. You've been warned and you deserve what you'll get."

Everyone in the restaurant, Morgan included, agreed to the sentiment. What Morgan didn't realize was that Reid had lifted his wallet within that dramatic speech and Hotch and he hadn't left to go to the bathroom. They had left the restaurant, using Morgan's wallet to pay their tab in secret and insisting to the waitress to keep hold of Morgan's wallet for another thirty minutes of him stressing about finding it and being able to pay his bill without it.

End.


	11. 56 Ninja

Set 6: restaurant – trapped – elevator - spark

Ever since Morgan and Reid had been trapped in an elevator, Reid had become more leery about taking them. Instead, he would take the stairs wherever possible when in the field.

The agents had just been brought in on a bizarre case in Manhattan, involving a sub-sect of Japanese culture, which honestly didn't filter the subject pool even remotely, they had opted to go to an acclaimed restaurant Ninja to get further insight into the recent slayings. Someone in NYC was going around killing people with a katana, leaving talismans, shuriken, and carnage.

A woman in a short kimono approached, using some Ninja magic that Reid studied with the very clear intention of adding it to his own act, they were led down a dark, uneven hallway with lumps in the floor until they were brought to a door. The group stepped inside, Reid only then realized it was an elevator. His stomach sank as the elevator jolted. His breathing hitched uncomfortably as the elevator moved in ways a five-star Zagat rated restaurant's elevator shouldn't, and when the trapped feeling had settled in, the door opened. Not with a ping, but with a spark as another ninja-server used what Reid firmly suspected to be magnesium, to set off more Ninja-magic.

The only thing keeping Reid sane in the endeavor through the Ninja, was Hotch's hand on his back. They sat on tatami mats, ate traditional Japanese sushi and French-fusion, appetizers, drank several sakes as they tried to get a feel of what would draw an unsub into this sort of mysticism. By the end of the night, Reid was thoroughly drunk thanks to the strength of the sake, and the kimono-clad ninja-waiter pouring his cup over and over again as he bested his magic trick figuring it out each time.

Back at the hotel, Hotch had been the first to come up with the realization that beyond the restaurant being an extremely expensive theme-restaurant, Reid being drunk, and that it probably had given them nothing in the way of usable information, he had figured out that Reid was adorable when he felt panicked.

End.

A/N: Ninja does exist, it's a theme restaurant that has a sister restaurant in Tokyo… and just shy of being there for the show and the sake… it is REALLY effin' expensive there for the type of sushi they served. ^.^


	12. 58 Stupefied

Set 8: lips– tender - panic – breath

Everything seemed so far away, words were being spoken, he knew that much from the way so many mouths were moving, but he just couldn't catch any sounds as it boomed past his ears.

His eyes flitted around, trying to read the opens and closes and translate it into syllables. Reid imagined everything hitting at once and for a brief moment felt overwhelmed. He had heard three distinct shots rush past him after two had not, instead, two rounds were embedded in his Kevlar vest, the young man whom had started the round of fire had not faired so well in it, now on the ground and bleeding severely.

Reid staggered as he tried to keep his footing and stumbled out of the center of the shoot-out, he crashed against the first upright surface he could get to, which so happened to be a concrete wall to soundproof the highway behind it.

Hotch approached Reid the quickest, putting a hand on Reid's shoulder, "Are you alright? Reid? Reid!"

Reid blinked, focusing on Hotch's taut lips, his chest was tender from the kick of the rifle blast. He turned his focus from trying to read Hotch's lips to breathing, he took in a few slow deep breaths before easing into a more natural rhythm while taking his vest off.

"…Reid?" Hotch tried again, not fully knowing how to get Reid to respond, but he did determine that Reid was correct with getting the vest off. When he didn't continue with the shirt, though, Hotch picked up for him. Undoing the buttons, he finished undoing Reid's shirt, tugging them from their tucked-in position around his hip-line to reveal an undershirt. He raised it over Reid's pectorals and earned him a strangled wince and gasp followed by unsteadied rise-and-falls within his chest, shades of red and pink punctuated two quadrants. "Are they broken?"

Hotch's fingers gently moved over the ribs closest to the center of the bruises and slowly fanned out. Reid's eyes met his again, his mouth agape between pants and still not being able to grasp what the hell just happened.

"Does it hurt?"

Reid shook his head, partly to Hotch, partly to cool his own emotions. Finally words hit his eardrums and were rerouted to his acoustic region of his brain, now if he could get his mind working enough to say something he'd be golden.

"N…a little, not broken… what just happened…?"

"You were shot in the chest twice with a hunting rifle by an unstable unsub…"

Reid nodded slowly letting it sink in, "He blind-sided us, coming to the station to suicide by cop when he felt cornered after seeing the profile released over the airwaves…"

Hotch gave a curt nod agreeing with the assessment. "You were outside and he spotted you first, and opened fire. Thank god you had your jacket over the vest, he probably didn't realize you had one on."

Hotch glanced over his shoulder noticing the others were focused on the unsub, leaving him to check in on Reid. He leaned in swiftly and stole a kiss before Reid could protest about the public display of affection. Reid's face instantly flushed red, how could Hotch do that with him being TOPLESS and out in the open like that…? He began to hyperventilate.

It was amazing, Hotch never thought a kiss from him could bring a person into a full-blown panic attack, but that probably shouldn't bolster his ego, instead he should just be thankful that a panic attack would be so easy to explain away to being shot twice by a rifle at close-range.

"We'll continue this tonight after we get back." Hotch informed and Reid nodded once eagerly and then a few more times in a calmer fashion.

"Yeah… I think a private audience is …a… a good idea."

Fin.


	13. 510 Quantum Humor

Rossi, by trade, was a people-watcher. What he could deduce when left alone silently in the corner of any given location doing his best impersonation of an uninteresting house-plant (which really did tend to be a challenge, he was a best-selling author and quite a charismatic speaker) usually manifested similar results to a peeved Garcia checking someone's credit-score. Those insights could be fairly damaging.

So, David Rossi, sipping on a too-hot coffee watched the office as the newest female member of the BAU entered the bull-pen. She seemed a bit baffled as Reid was animatedly telling a joke involving laws of physics.

"What do you call the sum of the diagonal elements of the tensor of

inertia? The spur of the moment."

Rossi watched as non-BAU'ers grimaced, knowing full well the story could go on for hours if no one shushed Reid fumbling through trying to be social. Hotch was looking at him like it was the damnedest thing he'd ever heard, irrationally focused on Reid's adam's apple bobbing up and down.

"…Oh, I have another one, this is great…" Reid smiled energetically as he started round two, "A small furry mammal walked into the bar and ordered a drink, to which the bartender replied, 'Sorry, our maximum occupancy is only 6.02 held to 10 to the 20th power, we can't serve a mole!' Oh, or how about this one—a neutron walks into a bar and orders a beer, the bartender gives him his drink and he asks how much to which the barkeep says, 'for you, no charge!' Isn't that one just great?"

Morgan had turned around at the second one, knowing his own limits, Prentiss visibly groaned and the new agent seemed paralyzed with a fear of offending the new team-member. Rossi was finding watching Hotch demonstrate just how desensitized he was to Reid's esoteric jokes, if one could even call them that. Rossi opted to distract Reid and save the new agent before they lost yet another. "Oh Dr. Reid, do you have a moment? I was wondering if you wanted to talk about psycholinguistics as pertaining to the profile of…"

"Yes!" Reid had disengaged with the limited audience a bit too eagerly, Dave cursed himself for the next two hours he's endure of Reid going on about pronouns, tenses, and ink-color choices and how that pertains to one's psyche. Hotch looked irrationally upset for a person spared the torture of Newton Knock-Knock jokes.

Later that day, well after Reid returned to his desk, which was roughly 30 polite minutes later, since Rossi was certain he'd have strangled the younger profiler if it made it to 31 minutes about up-looped letters being signals of a positive outlook. It was obvious to Rossi just what the hell all of this was about, Hotch and Reid's weekend get away must be fast-approaching. That conniving little shit was using those jokes in order to keep people from talking to him so he could leave at day's end come five o'clock sharp, and Hotch was in on it too! That was why Hotch glared when Rossi came up with a 'solution' that involved talking shop, he thought Dave really wanted to have that conversation with the super-computer known otherwise as Reid. That explanation made everything a bit better, well, except that Reid really thought those jokes were funny, that just hurt a bit to know people could think that way.


	14. 57 Lazy Saturday

Lazy Saturday

Red numericals illuminated the darkened room clearly exclaiming it is 9:03PM. The sole occupant in the room raises slowly from his chair. Approaching the wall, a large hand reaches the light-switch flipping it upward, lights turn on, the red lit-up clock dulls with the new light source in play. The apartment is tidy, it doesn't seem to fit the owner, but Aaron presumes it's because the apartment is so new and not yet decorated.

He heads to the bedroom, taking a brief detour to the kitchen to pick up a full ice tray and to the bathroom to get a towel.

Laying on his bed, Aaron spots his younger lover sleeping soundly. His face bears a look of agony and Aaron is sure of the cause. He picks up a damp towel and ziplock bag of cool water, he pours the water into the towel, soaking it up and then putting fresh ice into the bag. He returns it to Spencer's back, a towel the only buffer for his skin from the cold-source. He kisses Spencer's forehead before walking out of the room. He had never felt so amazing or guilty after having sex… no, that, that wasn't sex. Sex was functional, the animalistic fucking that they had had… he was impressed he still had it in him to throw a person's _BACK_ out for Christ's sake! Spencer wasn't even 30, if they didn't fix that by Monday… well, Spencer wouldn't hear the end of it from Morgan, and Hotch supposed that would be unfair.

Spencer turned his head back into the pillow and groaned. "That… it was great… but never again. We're never going 5 rounds again!" Aaron ran small circles along Spencer's back as he grumbled, not agreeing or disagreeing.

He leaned in, kissed Spencer, and then tried to cuddle against him.

"Nuh-uh… not happening, Romeo. You still need to cool your jets on the couch until I can sit UP." Aaron smiled fondly at Spencer, of all the many, many reasons to be banished to the couch, he can't think of one he was happier to have incurred.

Fin.


	15. 6 set 4 In the Corn Rows

In the Corn Rows  
6 Set 4 – Cornstalks—Cobwebs

Sometimes, people lose sight of how good a person's memory is, especially when that person isn't Dr. Spencer Reid. Everyone expects it when Reid remembers something or pulls out a statistic, or some esoteric anecdote that leads to solving a case. No one bats an eyelash when he does it, but when Hotch came into the room and mentioned the relationship of middle-America and almost pagan-like rituals of fertility representing a corn-god, and applying that same religious fervor to Jesus and his resurrection… and thus taking the case into a whole new direction? That gives a very severe set of looks and his subordinates muttering something about '_just how MUCH time is he spending with boy-genius anyway?_' that he will later need to quash if he hopes to get any by the next weekend the two have free.

Reid doesn't seem to be complaining about the new direction the case is heading, namely because while the others take it this way he can plead that it will stop taking his eidetic mine-field of a mind out of the cornstalks in Georgia that started a nightmare that officially ended in two days but off the books ended no less than three months after his return to the field, and then a few years of NA meetings he still haunted on particularly bad nights.

Even if this direction was meant to distract Reid, and only Reid by it's perplexities, it really did seem to hold water. How much of that was subconscious to the sleepy Nebraska township, Reid wasn't certain, but the killer seemed to have a psyche tied in with the whole community. No wonder, what with the small population. If the latest victim's mother hadn't protested and gotten State Police involved, the BAU wouldn't have even been brought in. It was like they didn't want this solved.

…Why would they? The killer had so far dealt with their dirty laundry for them so nicely, making them 'disappear' and doing it discreetly. The cadaver dogs were the only way they had even found the bodies, hiding in plain sight, yet no one reacted strangely to new additions in the corn-field. A corn field owned by a large corporation that employed most of the town's folk, had no idea there were scarecrows in their field let alone how many or when they were added. The workers 'over looked it' since they didn't put it up and just figured someone else did. That was the line they were feeding investigators and Reid felt nauseated. Autopsies showed how the victims were gutted, drained, and then stripped from what they wore or anything that connected them to the outside world, stuffed with straw, redressed in Salvation Army and Good Will clothing to match any other scarecrow, not before their faces and limbs were burned of course, disfiguring them and making it almost impossible to tell it was once a living, breathing member of this god-forsaken little town… and while these troubled fringes were being neatly snipped off the edges and put in the corn-field for public-works no one lifted a finger.

The pastor's wayward daughter who was sleeping around, and according to autopsy and her medical files three months pregnant, was said to have run off with her out-of-town trucker boyfriend to get married and settle down. That would be all well and good if she wasn't _under_ 16.

Then there was the town drunks, the men with the longest criminal records this town had for fights, disorderly conduct, domestic abuse, they weren't champions of the earth but they were still people, some were even fathers of young children…! It didn't even seem excessive to the workers to have 18 scarecrows litter a stretch of a mile, despite the farm being so much larger, it made Reid quake when he was led through those fields with the cadaver-dogs, Nebraska State Police and his team.

If he was being honest with himself, he'd admit that every time he turned down a row he was deathly afraid of what he might see, and it wasn't the dead body of the missing people he was suspecting to cause the most discomfort. That made him feel hollow, almost as hollow as the desiccated remain of a young loner, by the name of Betty Jane. Betty Jane had been diagnosed in the 'big city' as having a relatively minor form of autism. She didn't make eye-contact, she kept to herself, and the most damaging she had been to anyone was that she sometimes talked to herself in class which would cause a chorus of name-calling until the teacher asked her to remove herself, and not the bullying children.

Betty Jane, aged 8, was hung out, dressed up in a little sun-dress and straw stuffed to the brim between her real hair. The only thing that sort of scarecrow could frighten would be decent people with souls and small children themselves. Reid had not been the only field agent to hide stray tears as they cut her down from the wooden post she was hung off of, clumps of charred golden-blond hair left behind on the splintered wood, Reid didn't want to think it would get easier after this, to be so jaded was frightening, but he didn't think he could take it getting worse than this either.

After the discovery of Betty Jane, Hotch had made the insight about a cult or sacrificial mind-set. Reid volunteered to stay back and work on victimology and a geographical profile while the officers returned to the field, which Hotch took as a good idea, recommending Rossi also do the same. The two had reflected on this theory and how it would mean that most likely the first few victims' families may be less innocent than what they let on. No one pointed to the elephant in the room that said any parent not reporting their 14 year old pregnant daughter missing being a bit of a red flag, but now they had a direction to pursue to determine what that flag was signaling exactly.

So far, only the mother of Betty Jane, a woman who herself was a bit of an outsider to the small town seemed to scream any innocence whatsoever in the matter. After all, she worked two towns over, her husband whom she had moved here with after she wed him had died three years earlier in a horrible farm-equipment accident… Reid had looked at Rossi when he said that, begging the question of whether they could exhume that body and be certain it was really just that…

Birth records, change of address forms, death certificates and missing-persons reports, mismatching census information… though the census was only done every ten years, the population did seem to stay steady around 546 individuals, despite birthrates that suggested at least 100 unaccounted for people over the last 10 years. 100 people who didn't even get covered up, just imagining the ones that the townfolk gave cover-stories for, since of their victims, already 15 had cover-stories and explanations about some troubles with drugs or bouts of promiscuity, or 'great job opportunities out of state'… Reid stopped thinking on the subject to focus on another aspect of the puzzle.

Of all the cornfields, why was only this one so decorated by scarecrows? Though it wasn't suggestive of where the victims were brought when they were killed, let alone where they were abducted from, the prominent dumping ground that never changed spoke volumes of the comfort-zone of the killer or killers. Laying out a topical map hadn't told Reid why, laying out a local map with town architectural structures on the other hand, well that was night to day. Reid made the recommendation to go visit a local church to get to know the locals a bit better, see their world views a bit more clearly… snoop to see if he could find murder weapons, you know, standard FBI practice for profilers. Hotch had sent Morgan, Reid, and the town sheriff there to ask questions about the members of the church, find out about the missing members of the church, when they were last seen and in what situations.

Sometimes it isn't the truth being told but how the lies are said that reveal the most. Reid heard the run-down of how 16 parishioners came to leave the church over the last year. In a town that had only one church, which had sermons daily to keep up with the crowd, had lost 16 little sheep. The most obvious troubled-souls consisted of 3 members, the preacher's daughter starting her life in a new town with the man she loved not even a part of that story, no he saved more face than that for himself and his family. Three others were down on their luck and needed elsewhere to turn for 'opportunities' that a big city could afford, as he side-mentioned tricks, johns and drugs to both buy and sell as just what those opportunities were. Betty Jane was presumed lost in the corn-fields, and try as they may to look for the poor _dear_, Morgan almost hit the man for the way he said it with such disdain and obvious involvement, they just couldn't save her… but they held prayer for her on Saturdays. Others left for the up-and-up chances and lives in other parts of the state or country, depending, leaving behind their children and spouses for no real reason listed and the final two were accounted for by their mistresses, last the local gossip thread had gotten to him at least, had been the pastor's closing lines.

Morgan was quick to get the names of these 'mistresses', who were more likely than not either lying about their involvement with the men, fictitious, or the next targets. Garcia quickly confirmed it to a smoke-screen, women who didn't appear on the map anywhere let alone in the victims' lives. No communications existed between the two men with any women beyond the scope of their marriage, in fact, and seemed to actually be genuinely good people. She did mention that one of them had chosen a strange church to attend though, since he was Jewish.

The air around the town was tense, Reid was sure it had less to do with the recent drought than their presence, but each member was carefully instructed to report in hourly, to never go out into the town by themselves or unaccounted for, and to always have at least two back-ups available. The last scarecrow had been taken down for a week, and since they started to appear on a roughly weekly scale since the ground was sown, Hotch had a bad feeling about it.

Hotch, Reid, and Prentiss had opted to investigate the church on Saturday, after all, that was when the pastor had mentioned they held a special sermon, and it was clear if he would let slip any double-entendre that it would happen there. The best of lies were built on kernels of truth. The church had a crowd of one hundred or so congregants, but from Reid scanning the crowd he only spotted Betty Jane's mother from the victims' families. Even the pastor was absent, which was odd to them that he'd leave important worship to his wife to deliver. Reid had suggested 'excusing himself' to use the restroom, which Hotch and Prentiss nodded to, looking at the pastor's wife for instruction for where to find the restroom. It didn't matter, really, because they knew full well in the course of their discussing with her in front of the pew before the sermon got full-into-swing that he'd find a way to double back and get to the lower rooms, if not out-right climb through a window to get into the basement and see who was _there_. Hotch didn't think they were fooling anyone with the two plain-clothed officers from out-of-town also sitting in, but hoped that the cover story of being religious and having to meet in _a_ house of God to invoke prayer was better than not visiting _their_ house of God on a holy day. They doubted it would pan any new information, but the extra set of eyes was what they were hoping for, so Hotch and Prentiss chatted up the pastor's wife as the cops watched Reid sneak from the back of the church to behind the altar and into the side room that would lead to the basement while distracting the other members of the congregation with the presence of four outsiders.

The first thing Reid noticed was cobwebs, the lack of sanitation didn't end with a moldy smell of concrete, musty uncirculated air, or even decaying cobwebs coated in dust, he smelled other things too. Scarier things like kerosene, motor oil, dried blood… well, what he suspected was dried blood. He'd been around it enough times to have more than a vague idea about the scent. He ventured further into the dark hall, the back of his neck's hairs all standing at attention as he combated his chills. He knew he was oddly the better choice to sneak around. He didn't necessarily look so out of place in his plaid-patterned dress-shirt with his khaki-work pants replaced by jeans. He was a younger man who wasn't much taller or shorter, he didn't impose a great air like Hotch did, and he wasn't strikingly gorgeous like Prentiss let alone half as assertive of either, he also knew how to walk with enough of a purpose to look like he belonged even if he damn well didn't. He thanked public school for that, as oddly as that sounded.

Reid had kept a radio in his pocket, which with jeans was a little more of a challenge to do so discretely, he decided to call in to Morgan to report the scent of blood, his eyes adjusting to the dark as he made sure no one was going to jump at him. He had enough of those life-experiences to not need any further insight.

There was a dim amount of light at the last door in the hallway, so, he quietly went in that direction. As he came closer he heard more and more sounds, quiet mumbles that almost sounded like chants or prayer. Reid supposed whatever they were praying to was deaf if the world held any justice in it. He reached the doorway and stopped short, while he wanted to bust in, make sure no one was being hurt, anything he'd find that way would be useless—illegal search and seizure until he had probable cause to enter.

He heard a muffled sound of struggle, digging his nails into his hands and opening them, he radioed into Morgan something he was almost certain he'd regret later. In a faint whisper he said, "Morgan, two clicks if you read me… I hear signs of a struggle, do you have that court-order yet…?"

The radio clicked twice. "Tell the others it's the last door in the hall, I'm going in."

Upstairs, as Reid rushed into the room, two muffled gunshots were heard just after Hotch and Prentiss's radios squawked Morgan's booming order: "GO, GO, GO! MOVE IN TO BREECH!"

Guns drawn, the two made their way down the stairs as the officers made it to the altar, each looking shocked and panicked as they heard gun-fire the ways away.

"Morgan, I heard shots fired—tell me you can reach Reid!" Hotch asked.

"Negative, Hotch, last room down the hall!" Morgan relayed as the seasoned profilers made their dash.

"Changing frequencies to Channel 3!" Hotch announced as much to himself, to Prentiss, to the police and to Morgan—channel 2 had been their station to maintain radio silence, but now they needed to reach Reid desperately. No sooner was the knob turned than Prentiss reached the last door, an impressive feat for a woman in 3-inch pumps.

She shoulder-shoved the door meeting some resistance at first, the second time the door gave, Dr. Reid flung to the floor from the impact, still training his gun on the pastor, panting.

"FREEZE! FBI! PUT YOUR HANDS UP! EVERYONE!" Prentiss called out, filing into the room, Reid gingerly sat up, pulling with him an 11 year old boy who looked more relieved at the sudden screaming than Prentiss thought to be a good sign. He, and Reid, smelled like kerosene, stunk of it and were still wet with it by what Prentiss could tell. "Oh my god… you burned them _ALIVE_?" The autopsy details had never revealed that much to them, though cause of death hadn't been determined in more than half of the bodies.

Hotch was inside now, Reid made eyes at him to show his signs of relief, then two other armed officers, and slowly the crowd-control seemed much more realistic.

With twenty to one, Reid had shot the pastor holding the knife only to be dowsed in kerosene by another member of the inner cult, who was making a grab for his zippo before Reid shot him in the head. The rest of the time he waited for his back-up to pull in, his service piece was training against each member of the group pulling the young boy away from them and toward the door when Prentiss had kicked him off balance. The boy hadn't even cried, hell, as far as the team knew no boy had been reported missing and Reid suspected the reason for that was that his parents were in the room with him now. It made him feel light headed, that or the kerosene fumes, but he felt sick all the same. They'd have burned their own child alive and WATCHED this for some sake of the community bullshit that Reid didn't even want to understand.

The boy looked like he wanted to run to two people in the room, but simultaneously was far too afraid to.

The pastor finally spoke as the scene painted itself in everyone's psyches.

"You have to understand… if we don't sacrifice the child, the rains won't come… we're in a depression now, if the crops fail us this year—they'll close the farm and bankrupt this entire town. The town will die, so you see, we have to…"

"If you'd sacrifice the few for the many, by all means, go first!" Reid bit out heatedly, pushing the boy out of the room.

Hotch picked up from there, chiding, "When's the last time your crops even failed you…?"

"That just goes to show the power of prayer… since we started the sacrifices, we haven't had a single bad harvest!"

"And once the corporation running this farm finds out about this…? What do you think will happen now? You single-handedly destroyed your town yourselves…" He watched them tighten and writhe at the sentiment, for the first time fear and horror played upon their features. "Oh, now you're scared…? Don't worry. Not a one of you will see it, I can promise you that. Because not a one of you is going to see fresh air or freedom for the rest of your natural lives!"

As State Police with riot buses came in to clear out the members of the inner sect of the church, Reid just sat dumbly on the stoop of the church, watching Prentiss care for the young boy near the squad car. He almost didn't hear Hotch approach, but he felt the arm of support wrap around his shoulders.

"You saved that boy's life."

"That boy is going to be traumatized for the rest of his life thinking his parents wanted to kill him…" Reid smiled sadly, "I figured out what the boy did to deserve it, too. Want to know…?"

Hotch looked at Reid, it hurt to see Reid so fragile like this, and he knew the boy somehow struck a chord with Reid's own tragic upbringing, he just wasn't sure of how, yet. "The boy was diagnosed with depression. Big surprise in this town that they even let him see a doctor, they told him the devil was marking him… that he brought sin in and they had to do away with him to bring god's love back to this horrible town."

Hotch's hand tightened around Reid's left shoulder in a squeeze, "Come on, you should get out of that clothes… they don't suit you."

Reid nodded, "I actually have a headache from the kerosene fumes, I… Do you want to know what's the worst part of all of this, Hotch?"

"Tell me…"

"…The corn-field. They chose that corn field not because it's where the corn grew worst, not because it was the easiest to access—they did it so they could WATCH their scarecrows just ROT there and make sure no one touched their offerings, Hotch. I know with what we do we expose ourselves to the worst humanity has to offer, but those… those aren't people, Hotch. Those are monsters in that van! To do that to their _OWN CHILD_ because they didn't want to _MOVE_…! I… I just… I don't get it, damn it."

"Reid, have you ever read about the psychological experiment from the 1960s called _the Wave_?"

He nodded, "I know, it was just like a wave. The more it was supported the more caught up into it people got, the bigger the atrocities and the hate. The propaganda, the sense of belonging, and then before they even saw what they were becoming they were swept away by it."

"All except a handful of people managed to resist it, because in any situation there is always someone who'll go against it and see a crazy idea, and more people who'll step behind it and follow… We see it time and again with cults. The pastor probably started this and these people, drowning in their own desperation wanted to throw themselves into anything they could that would save them or protect them… but where's the point when the rituals seem silly to dangerous? It isn't as clear of a line for the rest of the world as it may be to us."

Reid nodded, "Yeah… that makes sense, but… but how does that help that little boy pick up the pieces? How does knowing that…" Reid shook his head, "I'm getting out of here. Think I can get a ride down to the station from one of the State Police…?"

Hotch shook his head, "I think _we're all_ done here. I'll drive." Traces of a sincere smile graced Reid's corners of his lips.

"Andrew Mellon once said, 'There is no cause to worry. The high tide of prosperity will continue.'" Reid smiled slightly despite himself as Hotch continued.

"'As much as we need a prosperous economy, we also need a prosperity in kindness and decency."

"Caroline Kennedy." Reid smiled a bit more now, happy to be heading out of this abyss.

Fin.


	16. 6 set 1 Burned

SSAIC Aaron Hotchner was a seasoned field agent that afforded himself a certain level of insight. One such kernel he had learned over the years was that no one member of his team was to be treaded lightly. Each could hold their own in their unique ways…

For example, Elle would happily take you to the PE area to train, lift your protective cup while chatting you up, and then on the mats nail you in the baby-makers if you failed to notice a new hair style or blow off a group-lunch. Derek's revenge could also be viewed as a physical type, but the witty banter and name-calling wasn't completely out of his repertoire, nor was his ability to get a small group of feisty co-eds into it too, if the reward was there.

Jason, that bastard had a mind of a steal trap and would use it, psychological sucker-punches were his strongest suit. He'd bring up some issue you had with your mother and didn't even know about, make you reel in anguish until he felt the adequate damage was done and then change the subject and make you have an awkward week until you forgot or coped with the rampant abuse of his profiling ability. That was one of the reasons Hotch had proposed a 'no-profiling teammates' rule, after all… getting kicked in the junk was a hell of a lot less painful than what he'd do. Dave, while he'd hate to ever be compared to Jason, had a similar head-game.

However, there was a clear distinction between wittily playing cat-and-mouse because he was surly and the out-right skull-fuck Jason would lay down upon a person if they dug too deeply into his personal space. Jason hadn't ever done it to Derek or Spencer, but members of the team that had been a bit less suave with how to act around the man had suffered… Boston really wasn't as great of a town as it was talked-up to be. Far too many psychos seemed to inhabit the area. Bale, Foyet… Hotch continued to look at the situation at hand.

This unsub, standing before him, he had no idea what he was getting himself into. He almost felt bad for the poor bastard.

JJ, she would do a juvenile one-up in something involving wagers, a bit sophomoric, but it worked. He knew to never play darts with her for money, just like he knew never to play Spencer in cards, chess, or Twister. Well, then again, after the problems with his leg… maybe Twister was safe again.

Garcia, she'd hack your records and would either bring up embarrassing purchases, MAKE embarrassing purchases, or do other malicious things that were technically illegal, he was sure. She wasn't all behind the scenes, either though. She knew how to get the water-cooler abuzz and usually had a photoshopped image to 'prove' it… seriously, how many times does a person take a camera to a gay cowboy porno convention and that still be believable, though?

Emily, she could be snarky… she and Dave while dubious when they wanted to be, and even Penelope and Derek's water-cooler vengeance was more social-justice than anything outright cerebral… and while Hotch knew his vengeance was petered out sparingly since he was an authoritative figure and thus couldn't abuse his powers too much, were typically administrative- what? You don't like the new plant in my office? Here's ten more files due arbitrarily by end of day. Sure Hotch could be physical if he wanted or needed to be, but he didn't have to. Same goes with psychological…

…Spencer's vengeance, though… that was quite possibly worse than Jason's ever had been. And if you earned a ride on the Reidvengeance trip, you deserved it no-doubt. Spencer doesn't dole it out without quantitative reason, purpose, and exacting precision. Sometimes it ran from a childish prank, sometimes it was so esoteric and ingenious you wouldn't even realize he did something but would still feel horrible. While all of Hotch's agents were capable of taking care of themselves… Reid, despite being the youngest of the team, with exception to Dave and Jason had probably been doing that the longest—he practically raised himself with his absentee dad and schizophrenic mom… he took some of the most malicious bullying throughout his entire life and still took it, and even then he was too busy empathizing or pitying his abuser to actually even bother think vengeful thoughts.

One time, though, Morgan had taken a joke too far… his perceived wrong had made him use the water-cooler tactics that Reid honestly loathed, because despite being a constant target of bullying and being able to empathize with the bullies did not mean Reid liked it or deserved it. So, Reid had seemingly made a piece offering. He had bought a pack of gum and milk for lunch that he decided to save for a little later, he offered Morgan a piece. Morgan seemed reluctant, so Reid broke open the pack and took a piece, it was a bubble-yum square, cinnamon flavored, Reid had then baited him with it being a peace-offering, asking him if he really didn't think it was time to move past this pettiness… and Morgan took it.

Reid, chewing on his piece, didn't make a face- didn't sweat as he chewed on the jolokia pepper-and-cinnamon trick-gum. Morgan was bawling after three seconds, after the gum had already coated his taste-buds and quickly became apparent that cinnamon was not the main component of flavor _at all_. After Morgan spat his out and accused Reid of switching it out, Reid spat out the same garishly orange colored gum and took out his milk, winked and chugged it.

Sure, Reid was just as miserable for the next thirty minutes as he privately reeled to recover out of Morgan's sight, but the dedication to prank him that properly… Hotch respected him for it. He admonished him, while he laid reeling on his couch and told him he deserved the pain a bit for going so far, but he respected him all the same. Reid always walked the line of just where to draw a prank and make it ok. He once set his donuts to electricity when a certain donut-thief struck three days in a row for the rookie's breakfast. Hotch hadn't been the Agent-in-Charge then, but he saw how Jason decided not to push it, saying Spencer had to find a way to fit in… make a niche for himself besides being the really, really, really smart one, besides the low voltage wouldn't do anything to a person without a pace-maker, and the FBI agent snagging Spencer's donut was plenty fit.

To this day, the heralding office-tail of not messing with the BAU's packed-lunch remains, and no one really cared to complain thanks to Spencer's sense of justice.

Hotch looked at Reid, of all the people to be stuck in the situation with, back against the wall with a crazed unsub out for blood, unarmed, and out of communications with the world—he couldn't think for the life of him that trading for any of the others would be a better combination.

Rossi would probably antagonize too much, cause him to fly off in a fury, and while in that fury he'd get sloppy, Hotch would've been the one punched in the face more likely than not until they wrestled him down and subdued him… Morgan might be able to take him physically, but let's face it- he's on something… and if it's PCP… shot eight times in the gut might not do it to drop the guy 'til he starts to 'sober'.

"Calm down… no one's here to hurt you, we… ah… just want to talk." Reid motioned his hands in soothing gesticulations, "I, uh, have some gum… want some?"

"Is this a trick…?" The man seemed leery, waving the pistol around erratically.

"…That doesn't make much sense, does it? Why would a profiler walk around with trick-gum?" Reid explained, calmly. He put a piece down on a flat raised surface and backed off, taking a piece himself, offering it to Hotch, with his thumb over the pack signaling Hotch to decline, which he did.

Reid started to unfold his piece, the unsub took his, ripping through the paper and shoving it into his mouth before Reid could even get the paper off his. Reid stopped his ministrations to count mentally. By time he hit seven mentally, he charged, lunging at the man as he started to reel. One hand forced the gun to the man's left side, crossing his right arm over his chest, the second hand covered the man's mouth to prevent him from spitting the gum out for about fifteen seconds before letting go.

The unsub, though thrashing, was in a calmer state now than he had been before when he was pacing and going on about killing the world… not the people in it, the actual physical entity of the WORLD.

The man gave up the gun to swipe at his mouth as if he could physically brush the burning from his mouth. When that inevitably failed, he started to grab dirt from the ground and shove it into his mouth to cool it. Reid withdrew with the gun seamlessly, to Hotch's amazement.

Later, after they had subdued the unsub and managed to haul him in, half-dragging the power bastard as he screamed incoherently about being on fire, Reid smiled and patted his pocket.

"I can't believe you kept that from all those years ago, it's had to be, what, eight years ago?"

"Well, you never know when you have to subdue a psychotic, high unsub… seriously, what kind of profiler would I be if I _didn't_ keep trick-gum with me?"

"It was ingenious, Reid. Risky, don't get me wrong… but…"

"Hotch, the man was on PCP… you know how hard it is to bring them down with physical pain. We really didn't have much choice." He smirked, "Besides, Dragon's Breath Gum has never failed me."

Aaron made a mental note that if he ever pissed Spencer off to never, ever, under penalty of death, ever take a piece of gum from him.

"You know, the psychological profile of a poisoner isn't too far from your alley… you are pretty non-confrontational."

Reid pouted, pinching his arm, "That's hardly fair… I can confront people, I just prefer to do risk-management before I take the chance."

"That you do…" Aaron leaned in and kissed his lover, now that the case was wrapped up, he could hang up his hat as SSAIC 'Hotch' Hotchner and just be Aaron, concerned lover who just had a very bad day at work with his lover, Spencer.

Spencer slipped his hands around Aaron's shoulders, folding his wrists behind Aaron's neck as he pulled him closer. "Mm, I love you…"

"Love you too. Remind me to never get on your bad-side."

"You couldn't possibly." He winked, "but if you did, you know I'd crush you without mercy, right?"

Aaron smiled, "Absolutely, never doubted it for a moment."

Fin.


	17. 71 Not a Scorpion?

Set 1: brown - spider

Spencer Reid stared in morbid fascination as eight legs moved up his pant leg with a purpose. He had his suspicions as to what it was, but without his contact in his left eye (while the right eye's lens remained thankfully) those fine point articulations were just not there. So far, he knew it was brown, and it had eight legs that were longer than it's torso, thus making it either a very maimed scorpion, multiple-amputee centipede or millipede, or most likely a spider. He didn't think ticks had Marfan's Syndrome, so he excluded them off the bat.

Squinting, he was pretty certain it was a wolf spider, accessing his vast memory he recalled wolf spiders to be venomous, but fairly non-aggressive. That was good, because Spencer was not in the position to move, at the moment.

He casually glanced around his surroundings, not really liking what he was seeing at all. His hands were behind his back in a sloppy version of a surgeon's knot. Had the unsub taken the time to tie it tightly, Reid might have been in a hard spot, but Reid wasn't about to give the psychopath pointers. Beyond him, twenty feet away and underneath a trowel lay his service-pistol. The unsub may not have noticed it, but Reid had frantically needed to know where his weapon had slid after their initial scuffle. Outside of the barn doors were three probably livid FBI agents, including his boyfriend-and-boss Agent Hotchner, JJ, and Rossi. Behind, at the other point of entry that was now being blocked off with a solid wood beam, Morgan, Prentiss, and three LEOs were pounding at the door. On the second floor of the barn was where the unsub had squirreled himself away with his latest victim. Reid could hear her muffled screams, which had been what led him to this predicament. He couldn't hear them anymore though, which was a bit disheartening.

Forty minutes ago, Reid was not particularly interested in how to undo a surgeon's knot or the length of a wolf spider's fangs and whether they were deep enough to penetrate khaki pants. He was starting to suspect they were. No, Reid was interested in getting into the house on the property to serve a search warrant and search for a victim and an unsub. Thirty-seven minutes ago, Reid had become transfixed on how to open a jammed barn door when he heard muffled sounds, even sending his back-up, Morgan, around the other side to try to force open the other door he had noticed on the way in.

Thirty-six minutes ago, he was curious of how much energy to exert into the handle of his gun to break a lock that was proving impossible to pick, and get into the barn that he could swear he was hearing noise in. Realistically, he knew there had to be another way into the place, the way the unsub got in and out of, because a pad-lock on the opposite side of the door was not a good indicator of his being inside—but the noises coming from there indefinitely refuted that sentiment.

Thirty-three minutes ago, as Reid found a ladder and began to stealthily make his way towards it, he wondered if breaking the lock was louder than he thought, but that thought was quickly dismissed as he realized Morgan still wasn't inside, but the unsub who was now on top of him was. A man than was three inches slighter than him in height tried to subdue him with a choke-hold, Reid elbowed the man hard in the gut three times before sliding his head underneath the man's arm and dislodging, he suspected, his left contact. He whipped his arm around, gun in hand and into the brim of the unsub's nose. That should have elicited a howl and spurt of red, but Reid miscalculated. Instead he got a quick counter of the opposing meat of the man's palm into his throat which made him reel back as he tried to regain the ability to breath. A fast counter sent Reid to the ground as the unsub kicked him behind the- and damn it had to be THAT one- knee. He went down hard.

The two then rolled a bit, both aiming to gain possession of Reid's gun, Reid fired one round before his wrist and elbow were jammed hard into the earth and metal bit of rebar sticking awkwardly out of concrete, it led to the cascaded motion that threw his gun in an odd direction, landing about five feet away underneath a trowel. Another blow, this time right behind his left ear, had fazed Reid enough for the unsub to quickly tie his hands behind his back, drag him over to a corner and go to the opened door and pin it shut. While Reid came back around, he saw the figure retreat back up the ladder toward the whimpering victim.

Sliding himself against the walls forming that corner, dust rubbed on him, but he found what he was hoping to, a loose nail. His nimble fingers began working on it to work on loosening the surgeon's knot, he felt the vague outlines of the over-and-under twists to determine that was what he was working with. For over three minutes he worked on that knot, noticing a spider investigating him as a member of the corner. Looking behind him he noticed what was suspect to be the wolf spider's burrow. Silently, he cursed himself at his luck and hoped it was still only the one spider.

One wolf spider might be venomous, but it was only the type of venom to make a healthy adult with a functioning immune system sick, a handful of bites…? Reid wasn't so certain. He hadn't seen any statistics on multiple bites and the related increase of lethality that would present. He didn't want to find out.

Reid tried to focus on the efforts at hand, which was hard with the pounding at the doors and banging noises coming from the second floor. He recognized that sort of slamming sound as a head being bludgeoned into a hard floor, he really wished he didn't have to retain that sort of knowledge, but it made him feel a sense of urgency that he already had, damn it!

It was close now, he was able to get up to his first knuckle of his thumb joint through the opening, he rubbed the knot some more, and noticed that lubricant was making it easier to slip out now. He realized the only lubricant he had on him was his own source. His thumb slid through, and immediately afterwards, the rest of his right hand followed, his left hand came around quickly as he pushed the knot off himself and rushed to the trowel to regain his gun. In the strides between there and here, he debated the merits of opening one of the doors or going after the unsub and hopefully save the victim.

Regrettably, he doubted those thirty seconds would do anything productive for the woman, so he opened the door he had entered from and then made his way to the ladder as Hotch, JJ and Rossi swarmed inward. Reid gave Hotch a look signaling where he suspected the unsub to be, he ignored the biting pain and suspicion that the unsub had claimed one more life before being stopped. He also outright ignored the biting pain of a pissed off wolf spider as it was jarred too much.

The nausea didn't seem to be going away either. Half-way up the ladder, in roughly seven seconds, and the wave of nausea was severe. Damn, maybe he was allergic to this venom type. Reid predicted a bus-ride in his near future as he silently stepped onto the second floor.

He raised his gun and took three steps forward. "Put your hands up!"

Hotch and Rossi were next up, JJ had rushed to the other door to let in Morgan, Prentiss and the LEOs. Hotch raised his gun to cover Reid, the unsub raised his blood-soaked hands, slowly turning around to smile at them both, satiated.

"So I guess I won't get a chance to play with you next, huh…?" He gave a suggestive look to Reid, Reid's brows furrowed, and damned if the nausea didn't feel worse.

"Put your hands on your head, get down on your knees!" Reid instructed, before he could outright sense the change in facial expressions from the unsub, he was charging Reid with the intent of taking him off the floor and dropping him a story. Hotch fired three shots, Reid reciprocated with a second delay firing two shots of his own before the unsub fell at his feet, a hand touching his ankle. The man looked up at him, smiling carnally. Reid kicked his foot to dislodge the hand before holstering his gun and rushing to the victim.

Hotch holstered his piece as well, took out his cuffs and cuffed the unsub as he succumbed to his wounds.

Reid froze for a moment before straightening his back, "Get an ambulance! She has a pulse!" Denying himself the relief of running outside the perimeters of the crime-scene and emptying his stomach contents, Reid happily substituted that with holding the young woman's wrist to keep a feel on her pulse with his slightly bloodied hand, and with his other hand holding pressure onto a moderate bleeding wound on the back of the woman's head. "Brianne, can you hear me? Brianne, my name is Dr. Spencer Reid, I'm with the FBI… we've got you now. You're safe…"

"Where is he…" The woman's voice was tiny, fearful, and strained.

"He can't hurt you any more, I promise. Brianne, you've got to hold on for me, we're getting paramedics here as fast as we can…"

And in truth, it was fast, only three minutes before a pair of paramedics traversed the ladder, debating how to get her down with a pulley, c-collar and backboard. Rossi had half-held and half-pushed the unsub down the ladder a minute prior, dropping him into Morgan's clutches as he was pulled to a second ambulance.

Now, with both being taken in to the hospital, Reid looked at Hotch, eyes sheepish as he smiled with only so much sincerity. "I think we should follow them in."

Hotch nodded, "I doubt Mr. Summers is going to make it, the LEOs can take Ms. Ashfield's statement though."

Reid shook his head before dipping a bit, landing harder into Hotch than he had liked, "No, I mean… I was bit by a spider and think I need treatment, but would like a little more dignity than riding in on a bus."

Hotch's eyes went wide. "What? What kind? When?"

Reid eyed a corner, shrugging towards it, "When I was put in the corner. I think it was a wolf spider, but he knocked my contact out, so it may have been a brown recluse… not sure, but definitely nauseous. Need to go in."

The older agent nodded, "Right. Reid and I are heading to the hospital to keep tabs on Ms. Ashfield and see if Mr. Summers is going to make it. We'll meet up at the Sheriff's Office in two, three hours tops."

The others nodded, Morgan playfully ruffled Reid's hair. "Damn do you attract crappy luck, what the heck happened to your wrist?"

"Bad S&M experience." Reid joked, blushing as he stood next to his boss, "On a plus note, I now know how to get out of a surgeon's knot with my hands tied behind my back."

Prentiss smirked, "Now you're one step closer to never having to worry about S&M sex ending up like it did in Gerald's Game."

Rossi scoffed, "You read literature that pedestrian?"

"Ha, we can't always read Emily Dickenson or accredited David Rossi, you know. Besides, Stephen King has his merits."

"If you like formulaic writers…"

"If you like formulaic horror writers, E. F. Benson was fairly popular especially during the 1930s…" Reid offered, Hotch's hand on the small of his back as he led him toward the ladder.

"Are you going to be able to get down those alright?"

Reid nodded, "Yeah, shouldn't be too hard, even with only one contact." Getting to the ground, Reid fanned his hands out gesturing and saying a quiet, "Ta-da."

Hotch followed closely behind, leading him to the hospital. Upon their arrival and Reid's admission, three subcutaneous injections of corticosteroids around the darkening bite, and Reid was given a clean bill of health. That didn't stop Hotch from cornering Reid for a moment to kiss it better anyways.

"Next thing biting on your leg better be me." He whispered erotically into Reid's ear, leaving the younger man to blush.

"Just do me two favors… don't bite me where the spider did since it still is a little sore, and don't tie me up." He looked at the bandage the nurse had put on his wrist, more disturbed by it than his spider bite.

"Deal."

"Good. How does tonight sound?"

"Perfect."

Fin.


	18. 72 Man Card

Set 2: paisley – feet

There are a few string of words Hotch had hoped for the sake of his manhood to never have to utter, one of these such lines that would lead him into handing over his man-card would be as follows:

"Sorry I can't go fishing with the guys this week, I twisted my ankle on my boyfriend's haphazardly laid out paisley-print scarf yesterday morning."

He looked at his swollen ankle, damn… Sure the guy-card was just some token symbol that didn't really exist except in the form of drunken frat-boy gear to sell disaffected college students for a gag, but he worked with the sort of people who got that humor, and had several guy-cards key-holed away somewhere or another. To his knowledge, Morgan had about ten of the sophomoric print-outs, and the younger agent had even once given him one… that had once been Reid's and lost within two minutes of possession.

That man-card had been lost at the cost of Reid's utterance, "My feet are sore from all that tango Garcia had me doing… I need to get some essence of lavender and soak them."

Seriously, Hotch thought, how can a 29 year old man wear paisley print and do such a 'manly' job as profiling yet still manage to be so secretly fabulous? Garcia's fabulousness made sense, she didn't strap a gun to her hip, but Reid's? He just didn't get it… he supposed he wasn't meant to, oh he understood though, he just didn't get why he would. After all, who really is supposed to get a genius for all his quarks and love him? Isn't the point of love to be constantly confused and befuddled by that very person you do love?

Fin.


	19. 73 CSI Petting Zoo

Challenge Set 7 Set 3 Barn - Bone

Thinking back, Aaron Hotchner could not pinpoint one singular other time he had ever been hit with the thought that maybe, just maybe he'd spending too much time with his son for the boy's own good… and to tell the truth, this whole situation was more the direct result of spending time with his son while still working from home. He had to stop doing that, apparently.

Hotch just kept looking at Reid and back to his son then to his lover as his lover did his best to hide an amused laugh and chock it up to 'over-active imagination…' What sort of parent lets a 4 year old's imagination run that direction anyway? What the hell was wrong with Aaron as a parent?

What had brought on this tailspin of emotional insecurity about his culpability to parent a young child without Haley, or Jessica? He was glad Reid was there, but wasn't that also part of the problem…? No, Reid actually could put up blinders to work and compartmentalize more… no, this was on him. And what was that…?

Aaron Hotchner, Jack Hotchner, and Spencer Reid, no titles… no FBI agents, just as a family, had went to a wholesome, kid-friendly… hell, kid-oriented petting zoo. Held in a rural stretch about twenty minutes down the highway from their apartment in Quantico, since Hotch refused to live in the house Haley had died in, yet also refused to sell it as of now… they had gone into a barn, there were pigs, chicken, roosters, horses, llamas, alpacas too which made Aaron glad Spencer could differentiate the two for them… and even what a huarizo is… apparently that being a cross between an alpaca and a llama.

The petting zoo had ducks, quails, turtles, a Bernese python, a large iguana (nothing in comparison to the snake) and of all these animals, of all these textured distractions… what does his son hone in on and cry out in the crowded barn?

"Daddy! I found a crime scene! Look- it's a bone!"

Damn Reid was still managing to keep a somewhat straight face, though he was getting awfully pink behind the swelling cheeks. Reid swallows to look more stoic as he approaches Jack. "Hmm, let me see…"

He extends his hand and Jack deposits the bone for Reid to examine it. "Hmm, it's light…" He starts, "Very small too…" He says, studiously, as he explains it to Jack, the very fact that he was treating it like a serious inquiry was impressive to Hotch, but he knew he'd do almost the same thing, "It's too small to be a bone from a person, but I think you just found a duck bone. Watch this…" He breaks the bone against a fence, snapping it open to reveal webbing.

"See inside all those air pockets? That's what makes a duck light enough to fly. This is definitely from a bird."

"I guess the biggest crime-scene here is littering." Hotch smiles down at his son, rubbing his hair for a moment. "Where did you find it?"

"By the pig trough." Spencer suggested, neither feeling the urge to delve too deeply into how that made them feel… pigs would eat just about anything, and he meant anything.

"Nope, I found it by the hay."

One of the farm-hands approached, a bit embarrassed as they looked at the pile.

"By the looks of it, we found your culprit, Jack. See the guilty behavior… he forgot to throw out his lunch after going on break." Reid added. Jack's eyes went wide as he watched, studied.

"Yeah! Prob'bly!" Jack smiled and was rewarded with Aaron and Spencer smiling back, "I wanna go see the turtles now."

"Okay, but don't forget after you touch an animal what do you do?" Spencer reminded him, the boy reached his hand out for hand sanitizer which Aaron quickly spritzed into his hands. "Good boy."

Aaron watched Spencer deviate the potential collateral damage into a cute, family-friendly learning situation… how did he manage to snag someone so special into his life? He really never thought he was just that lucky of a guy. Maybe he wasn't spending too much time on the job when with his son, maybe he just wasn't spending enough time with him and Spencer together. They'd have to discuss that…

Fin.


	20. 74 New Place Feeling Good Series part 1

Set 4: candle – jacuzzi

Sliding back into the Jacuzzi-jet tub, Reid slid his head back against the rim, his chin and lips dipping below the water until his nose was level with the foamy bubbles of his luxurious bath. Reid had never been one to upgrade his apartment or frivolously paint walls, he didn't search for the biggest place with the best appliances, but the one amenity he had opted for when he moved into his newest apartment had been an amazing tub. He lucked out, the Laundromat was in the basement- he even found a place with a dishwasher. He even found a place that was only three blocks from a book store, a library and half a block from a coffee-house. His favorite antique book store was within five blocks, and the train station within seven.

He relaxed into the bath. Moving had been rough on his knee, not to mention his back. Closing his eyes, Reid imagined how the new apartment could be better… his two-bedroom was spacious, more spacious than he personally needed, but in his tub as he relaxed away the stress of moving he could imagine the ideal solution to the extra space.

Closing his eyes and mewling, the scene in his mind overlapped with reality, rows of different level of candles, soft rose-petals on the floor, his two-person tub occupied by himself and his lover Hotch… the second bedroom housing a toddler bed…

…He knew he was dreaming, he also knew it wouldn't happen; Hotch had been so kind as to explain why he couldn't live with Reid. Reid sank his face under the water for a few moments before coming back up embarrassed by the crystal-clear memory.

The room was no longer set up with candles as it had been in his dream, Hotch was no longer playing footsy with him, and the entire time he stared into the blank spot he wished wasn't empty. Finding his fingers getting pruned, he got out of the tub and wrapped himself in a towel. He donned a robe, and then he approached his cell phone.

His boyfriend might not be ready to move in, but that didn't mean he wouldn't want to come over.


	21. 74 New Day Feeling Good Series part 2

74.2

Reid's fingers busied themselves twining and untwining the cord to his robe as he listened for Hotch on the other end of the phone-call. After thirty seconds the anticipated disappointment of missing the call was alleviated. Hotch had answered.

"Spencer…? Do you know what time it is? Is everything okay?"

He let out a contented sigh, "I'm sorry, did I wake you up? It's been so hectic moving in, I don't think I've even unpacked a clock yet…"

"…No, no it's fine. How do you like the new place?" Aaron was smiling, Spencer could tell by the way his tone was softer now. Maybe he wasn't the only one missing him.

"You should come over and see it." He invited, he looked at his watch on the nightstand, he was inviting over it boss at 11PM, what the hell was wrong with him?

"Mmm, I'd like a tour. You aren't still mad about…"

"No, I understand… our relationship entails certain compromises we have to make that other couples don't have to. I still think we should start a group-carpool so we can at least drive to work together sometimes, though." Reid pouted, so he wanted some normalcy, was that so unheard of?

His apartment, besides being half a block from a coffee-house and three blocks from a bookstore was two blocks from Aaron's apartment. That had been the deal-breaker. Hell, the amazing tub? That was just his excuse. He knew Aaron's landlord insisted on having all his properties to have at least one amazing amenity.

"It's funny. This weekend I thought I wouldn't get a chance to see you at all. I thought you'd still be upset when I turned down your offer…"

Spencer mewled, he didn't want to go into that now, he was upset, but it was a predicted outcome. He knew better, but he still had to test the waters, "Mm, I am a little, but I already told you, I get it. But I'm lonely and want to see you, or is that not okay?"

Baited, Aaron easily fell for the trap he'd been wanting to walk into since 7AM when Reid had started the moving process. He had hired a company to help move his furniture, instead of ask Hotch, Morgan, Rossi, Kevin, Garcia, JJ, Will, and Prentiss to give up any point of their weekend. He probably felt guilty even thinking of asking JJ since her departure from the team two weeks ago.

"Sunday you should have a house-warming party."

"It isn't a house." Reid corrected.

Hotch adjusted, "Tomorrow you should have an apartment-warming party. Should you make the arrangements or should I?" That killed the chances for argument, and Hotch knew Reid would probably default it to him doing it, probably too embarrassed to arrange it for himself, though how that would look to anyone outside their circle… he had no idea.

"I just want you to come over… can you?"

The noise at the door distracted him from his answer, "Hold on there's someone at the door…" Reid paused, who the hell would be at his door at 11PM and not be the man he had just invited over? He checked the eye-piece anyway, smiling to himself as he said, "I have to call you back." And hung up.

Opening the door, he stepped to the side so Aaron could enter, he too disconnecting his phone, slipping it back into his jean pocket.

"It's a ten minute walk at most, but I decided to cheat and drive." He shrugged, "Have to scope out the lay of the road for carpooling and all." Spencer smiled warmly at his lover as he wrapped his arms around him, pulling him in for a long kiss.

"Let me give you the tour. This is the foyer," he led Aaron to the living room, still planting kisses on him, neither losing eye-contact for more than fractions of seconds to make sure they didn't crash into any half-unpacked boxes and to actually get a lay of the land, "this is the living room."

Spencer pulled him toward a slightly offset space, "This is the breakfast nook/dining room, and that's the kitchen…" he was now sucking and biting as he kissed down Aaron's throat, leaving tell-tale marks. "Then there's a small bathroom, and the second bedroom…" he didn't walk into the room, instead pulling his lover into the master suite. "And this is the master bedroom… and in there's an amazing two-person tub with Jacuzzi jets. Want to try it out?"

"Maybe later." Aaron offered, undoing Spencer's robe, "You just got out, and there's no way to prove it's a two-person tub without two people."

His lover smiled at him, making last weekend's conversation over dinner evaporate. All week it had eclipsed him, telling his lover of two years that he couldn't move in with him for work-related reasons. This compromise was good enough though, for now. Hell, he had been in that apartment for a long time, maybe he should move to a bigger place now that Jack was getting older, the young boy probably could use a bigger bedroom… this building seemed to have a good size… Those were his sneaky thoughts, but his mind was quickly more occupied with how to sex up his lover now that they had officially made up than to actually figure out how to exactly make it right.

Fin.


	22. 8 Prelude to Halloween

6: attention * Chinese * crayons  
4: alone * relief  
7: bon fire * apple cider * hot dogs  
8: when you look at me like that  
2: soft and silky  
3: pain in the ass  
1: Sunday morning  
5: home video * jack-o-lantern 

I'm going to try something here and try to do a short drabble for each, maybe even tie them together! Here goes, guys!

MMM

The morning had been hectic for Hotch, his sister-in-law had been an hour late, Jack had school, and it had been a tooth-and-nail fight to get the boy ready to rush out the door by time Jess finally made it and allowed Hotch to get to work, himself. He had made the foolish mistake of letting Jack distract himself with crayons while he whipped up some eggs, remembering how protein and grain in a small child early in the day kept their mood mellow and tantrums minimal until lunch.

While he worked on his culinary masterpiece, that Sean would probably have cried if he ate- and not out of joy, he failed to realize Jack had decided to draw him a picture on a case briefing he'd brought home to work on last night.

What he missed on his way out the door, he noticed at the team briefing, along with Reid who had sat next to him, leaned over to observe, and mention the psychology behind his son's color-choices being affiliated with a well-balanced and happy artist. Hotch blanched, but was still glad that at least Jack was well-adjusted. The case had been a standard consultation, the team had brain-stormed for half the meeting before establishing the solid outlines of a basic profile. They called the detectives, received feedback, give-and-take, and banged out a more detailed profile for them to release to the beat-cops looking for the unsub.

Since the meeting broke up just around lunch-time, the team opted to go out for lunch as a group. Reid suggested Greek, Prentiss and Rossi suggested anything but that, and Morgan and Garcia had convinced everyone to go for Chinese. Reid rightly took it as a personal affront, knowing full well they just wanted to make fun of him for not being able to use chopsticks as anything but a stabbing implement.

It was ironic, given Reid's prior statement about Confucius and his stance on knives.

Hotch was certain that, in thanks to the stars aligning, Reid would not have to deal with that embarrassment amongst the team for another few years. He was also certain that the team would have free Chinese for life out of the shop.

The team had been having lunch, dim sum, egg rolls, nothing particularly fancy, when an armed robber approached the counter and demanded the cash register be opened. Reid had spotted the sudden movement first, since he was facing that direction. He catapulted his broken-up dim sum at the assailant, landing squarely in the man's face. Reid had given up trying to convince the thing to stay on his chopsticks and had returned to using a fork, apparently a far better weapon, in this instance a better sling and stabbing instrument. The fact that Reid had slathered his dim sum in curry hadn't helped the assailant's cause, as hot spices and pepper slid into his eyes, he became frantic and made threatening motions toward Reid and the clerks with his gun.

Morgan took that instant to hit the man across the head with a plastic tray. He dropped to the ground ungracefully.

Reid fiddled with the fork, waggling it between his fingers, "Dr. Spencer Reid: 1, Confucius: Zilch." Reid had said, going back to his dim sum while Rossi just gawked at him, Prentiss had cuffed the unsub, asking the clerk if she was alright as the woman hysterically spoke Cantonese and dialed 911.

When the team opened their fortune-cookies, no one was surprised that Reid's "Learn Chinese" read _bàozhú- firecracker_.

MMM

Reid was glad to go home at the end of the day. It had been a long, hard, embarrassing day. A day punctuated after lunch frequently by Morgan saying "In bed" at random moments.

Apparently the joke was that any fortune cookie message could be turned into a come-on line, but since Morgan's fortune cookie had been "Learn Chinese" _dēng- lamp_ the joke was fundamentally flawed.

Reid undid his tie, kicked off his shoes and toed off his oddly-matched socks. He wished it wasn't Tuesday, he wished it was Friday. He wished that because then he'd spend the evening with Hotch, his secret lover. Instead, he'd just take the moment to relax in his own bed instead of a hotel in some random city or town dealing with victims' families and deranged killers. No, a bungling crook was enough action for the day. He'd settle for that hands-down.

Smiling to himself belayed just how proud he had been to take down the madman. By time his clock read ten, he had showered and shaved, because he learned a long time ago that being an elite member of the BAU did not always mean you got to grab that shower at 6AM before the work-day started. Sometimes the phone call at 4AM was the wake up and get out the door call. He snuggled into his fuzzy pajamas, under his covers.

He felt the urge to read Faust, he also had the urge to masturbate thinking about his lover and how the man's scent is still faintly embedded in the pillow the man reserves for himself whenever they have a chance to have a surreptitious liaison at Spencer's pad.

In the darkness of his room he does things to himself that feel so amazing and he is more than glad no one else can see the way his face stretches and contorts in ecstasy. The relief he feels in the pit of his stomach after he climaxes makes him sink into his sheets. Now the clock tells him it is 11PM, and after briefly cleaning up, he debates calling his lover. Instead he relishes in being alone and just able to snuggle back to his pillow asleep. After all, he'd rather not wake Aaron up if he got the respite of sleep. The last thing he wanted his lover thinking of was that he'd get called in for a case instead of being warm in bed.

Reid smiled, okay maybe Morgan's jokes were a little funny… heh, he was a firecracker _in bed_.

MMM

At 3:38AM, Reid's phone shrilled causing him to literally jump out of bed and then fall to the floor before his hand fumbled and found the offensive object. When the hell had his ring-tone got reset on him?

He blamed Garcia, he didn't know why, but intuitively it felt like the right thing to do.

Before he knew it, he was on a jet to a missing persons case taking place in Garrison, New York. Surrounded by his teammates who also looked haggard and ragged, he is accompanied by several detectives and cops. Even more teenagers are here, though.

He looks at the bon fire dwindling to nothing but embers. He can practically smell the hot dogs and beer. He wondered what happened to those 1950s hot-cider moments that Hallmark banked upon with their nostalgic cards. He focused his eyes on the edges of the fire. Carefully, he reached a gloved hand for a piece of paper, the edges were burnt and smoldering.

"Olivia Hollands was due home six hours ago. The girl has health issues… she might be in a medical emergency. When her parents called, we knew we had to move in quick." The lead detective explained.

Hotch shook his head in understanding, "What do we know about her?"

"Straight A student, came here with her cousin, her cousin lost sight of her in the woods when he went in there with his girlfriend to fool around. He got nervous, started asking around for the girl, no one saw where she went off to. He called his parents, freaked out and they called her parents, they called us."

"What kind of medical emergency are we looking at?" Reid asks, still examining the paper.

"Diabetic. They gave us an insulin kit just in case we find her."

The seasoned agents scowl, Reid's the first to offer up an explanation, "If she drank anything not realizing it was alcoholic, she might be in real trouble. The way alcohol metabolizes is similar to fats, she could have either increased her blood sugar or completely tanked it depending on how much she might have drank. We need to talk to her cousin and any other witnesses, figure out how drunk she got."

Prentiss and Morgan nodded, splitting up to start taking witness statements. Rossi pulled Hotch over, making mentions of getting as big of a search-party together as they could while this could still have a happy ending.

While Rossi is sequestering Hotch, Reid looks over at the seasoned field agent. His eyes are rumpling his clothes, the half-lidded desire, what happened before that call at 3:38AM still clearly on his mind. But that would have to wait, they had a girl to save.

MMM

Hotch straightens his tie, tightens it. Any bit of control he can muster will help. It's 9PM, they just got off of a case of a missing teenager, found the girl unconscious in the woods behind a log, the girl had gone off looking for her cousin in the woods, drunk and in a diabetic emergency, she had fallen over and collapsed, succumbing to a hyperglycemic coma thanks to two fruity drinks.

He remembered how Reid's hands nimbly worked the 29 gauge IM needle, Hotch doesn't focus on the nervous glint in Reid's eyes that have nothing to do with holding a woman's life in his hands as a bead of clear fluid gathers at the tip of the needle as it dribbles down toward the syringe. He swabs an area with an alcohol wipe then injects the fluid. Taking the pulse, Hotch doesn't watch Reid get the needle away from him as fast as he can, but he is watching his lover looking at him with the same hunger he had at the start of the day.

God, didn't he know what those leering looks did to his groin? If he had his way, he'd throw Reid into the SUV, ride through town, lights blazing, to the first hotel and fuck him until they're jet was refueled and ready to deliver them back to Quantico. Instead, he tolerated just imagining that, that and counting down the days until Friday, two by the way.

MMM

Friday nights, ever since Spencer had entered Aaron's life romantically, had transformed the man's routine dramatically. Friday morning, at around 5AM, Hotch would reach the office, he would put in twelve hours of work stopping at five instead of seven.

Spencer's routine has changed, too. He used to take his car in on Fridays. Not any more, now Spencer commutes in on Fridays, and as far as the brass knows, he commutes on his way back home too. In reality, Spencer goes to the coffee shop two blocks from the office, waits for Aaron to leave for the day, and hops into the older agent's car with a pair of coffees.

Today is no different, Aaron winks at him, flirting as if he's picking up the genius. There is no façade put up in case anyone notices them… this café isn't one many federal agents bother with. Most go to the cafeteria, and those that venture outward? They usually hit the three cafes in between here and the office, or go in a different direction entirely.

By time 5:20 hit, Spencer sat happily in the front passenger seat next to his lover, both smiling with wolfish gleams of pleasure.

Spencer squeezed Aaron's knee, "This week just doesn't know when to _stop_." He smiles, "I've been looking forward to this weekend since Monday."

Aaron grabs his hand, "I've noticed." He draws it to his mouth, kisses Spencer's knuckles. He sucks in one finger, toying with his lover, watching him squirm in an earnest wish to be in Aaron's bed NOW, not in five more minutes, not in fifteen—and sure as hell not in the 17 minutes and 37 seconds they were from the Hotchner residence.

During those minutes of Spencer's swelling manhood tenting his trousers, Aaron continued to work on his lover's hand, commenting how smooth and soft his skin was. That segued to how he had new silk sheets on the bed waiting to be christened.

Promises of soft silk sheets, softer sweet lips, and hot passionate sex until Saturday morning, when Aaron would pick Jack up from Jessica's and have a family day. While it was a promising outlook, at the moment, neither adult wanted to think about the museum they were scheduled to go to. Those sheets, though, they were quickly becoming the most interesting object in the Hotchner home.

They were so interesting that it was the first thing either man saw after the blurred rush up the steps, making out and groping the entire way to the bedroom. Aaron managed to at least close the doors successfully, that was probably the PTSD kicking in.

The sex had been passionate, banging, and rougher than Aaron had planned. He noticed this because after the third time through, Spencer touched his elbow squeezing slightly.

"I think I need a break…"

Aaron had smiled lovingly at Spencer, kissing him, asking if he needed anything, wanted anything to drink… Spencer opted to curl around Aaron, spooning him. He fell asleep like that after twenty minutes of recovering. He slept through until the early hours of morning, missing Aaron straightening out the room and blushing at just how gung-ho he had gotten. The two had been working up to sex toys, and it's quite possible that he had overdone it with the vibrating cock rings and anal beads.

Kissing the tip of his lover's nose, Aaron decided that 6AM was the best time to awaken his lover and usher him to the shower. He offered him fresh coffee to go with the sweet, soft lips, and promised pancakes within another hour until Jack got back.

MMM

"Hmm… Sunday morning already?" Spencer says, sniffing at the cinnamon-scented coffee.

Aaron gives his lover a pitying look, "Spence, its Saturday."

"Mmm… even better… wait, today's Jack-day, right?" He smells his coffee, bringing him around better than smelling salts. "Think he'll like the Smithsonian?"

"What's not to love about dinosaurs, insect zoos, and the hall of mammals? You've sold him on this last weekend."

Spencer smiles, "Well, as long as I'm corrupting your son correctly…"

Aaron smirks, "You know he was telling me about how they have an exhibit about planes."

Sitting up, Spencer rolled his shoulders hoping to loosen the knots in his back. He readjusts his grip on the coffee cup and takes a long drink.

"How is it?"

"I know we make a rule out of not profiling each other as professional courtesy, but I know you store your best stock of coffee in the back and use it when you're trying to make things right," Spencer started, he could see Aaron sweat a little, the man was a damn fine profiler, he's also just damn fine… and being damn fine in bed and with nothing Aaron could do about it? Sadistic, he had to know he was being sadistic, that was the only course Aaron's mind could entertain. "I think I'm taking the rest of the week off from that… unfortunately."

Aaron leaned in to kiss his lover, for a moment the two deepened the embrace, Spencer tightened a fist around the fabric of Aaron's shirt over his chest.

"I mean it. I'm going to be stiff all week, and so are you." Aaron laughed at the play on words.

"Alright, alright I surrender." He sits next to Spencer and drapes an arm around him protectively, "But would you be upset if I said it was worth it?"

Spencer blushes, looks into his coffee and nudges his shoulder once into his lover, "Since when are you the passive flower?"

"No more profiling, especially in bed, I mean it Reid."

The use of his Hotch voice and his lover's work-name made Spencer pout, "Fine, now _I_ surrender. I'm going to hop in the shower." He kissed his lover before gingerly standing up.

"Tease." Aaron calls from the bed after his lover cracks the door, both know thanks to Spencer's earlier statement that there will be no shower sex. Hell, there won't be shower fellatio, Aaron lays out Spencer's clothes from the closet before going downstairs to work on breakfast. He looked at the shelf housing his apology-grade coffee, sure he might feel a tinge of guilt for hurting Spencer, but he knew Spencer had enjoyed it up to that point too… now he just had to recover, he just wondered how walking around all day was going to assist in the recovery process.

MMM

It was late Saturday afternoon before Aaron, Spencer and Jack made their way back from the museum. Jack made it clear he didn't want to leave, but the tantrum belied how much he needed to leave and eat a decent meal. The way Spencer walked with cement legs suggested he could also use some time to recooperate.

Aaron, the only able-body among the three thanks to the tiring weekend, decided the best way to spend the day would be to cuddle up on a couch with some videos, pumpkin cookies courtesy a bake-sale near the front of the museum, and talks of Halloween.

Halloween, the favorite holiday of two of the three occupants of his car, and while personally Aaron had nothing against it he didn't have anything particularly for it. With the way his son and his lover got excited over it, that was slowly changing.

"Jack, Halloween is in a couple of weeks… do you know what you want to be yet?"

The boy turned his head so that his ear almost rested on one shoulder, then turned his head again so the other ear almost touched shoulder, screwed his head back up straight and said, "I wanna make a jack-o-lantern!"

"Jack, I asked what you wanted to be, buddy…"

"Yeah, I know, but I want to make a jack-o-lantern today daddy!" He thinks for a few seconds, "I wanna be an agent like you daddy!"

Spencer coughed a laugh into his wrist, clearing his throat to try to play it off for Jack at least. His lover shot him a glare before looking back to Jack, beaming. "Alright buddy, you can be an agent like me for Halloween. What do you think you should wear?"

"A suit and a badge!"

Spencer bent over to laugh a little more overtly, still mostly trying to keep the sounds muted. This was just… too… damned… adorable.

He say upright, "Jack, do you want to wear a vest like we do when we're on the field?"

The boy shakes his head, "I don't wanna be an agent like you, Spencer. I wanna be one like daddy!"

Now it was Aaron's turn to smile toothily, he gave his lover a teasing look, "Yeah, he wants to be an agent like his dad. Buddy, Spencer doesn't mean like the kind of vest he's wearing now. He means a bullet-proof vest. I can show you when we get home."

"Okay." Jack swings his feet from the chair the rest of the way home, excited, "We're gonna make a jack-o-lantern too, right?"

"We'll stop to pick out a pumpkin on our way then." Aaron submitted.

Spencer sticks his hand behind the passenger's seat from the side closest to the door to sneak a high-five to Jack. Aaron wondered just how much of that was staged to get him into making a mess out of his kitchen a week earlier than he had planned on.

When the three got to the store, Spencer made quick work escorting Jack to the largest of pumpkins, knocking on the most fit specimens until they ceremonially pointed to a pumpkin that had a 30 inch diameter.

"You're insane… how do you think we're even going to get that back home?" Aaron asked, he didn't think it would fit in the trunk.

"Oh, you can walk home, we'll drive it back." Spencer winked, putting it into Aaron's waiting arms. "I'm kidding, it'll fit in the back seat. I promise."

Aaron let out an exasperated sigh, laughing at the large orange object that had just cost him twenty bucks.

"You're helping with clean-up. Don't you think I'm letting you get out of it just because you're back's sore."

"Worth~ it~!" Spencer hummed out, Aaron couldn't help but think it was adorable when Spencer acted so young.

Spencer, of course, had been correct. The pumpkin barely fit between the door and frame to get into the car, but it had fit perfectly on the seat, while Spencer adjusted what Aaron had loaded, Aaron helped fix Jack into his seat encouraging the boy to buckle up his seat belt and then checking to make sure it was secure. Spencer took that moment to buckle up the pumpkin too.

"…Seriously?"

"Yes. Do you have any idea how much force that pumpkin could pick up if you had to stop short and didn't restrain it? Potential injuries aside, you'd be cleaning pumpkin seed out of your car for three months."

Jack giggled.

Arriving back at the house, Aaron undid the pumpkin and heaved it out, Spencer helped get Jack out of the car and the two walked to the house, Spencer took out his own key to open the door.

"Your dad's going to put in a video for you, I'm going to get the pumpkin ready for carving. Don't worry, that's going to take me a while, it's a really big pumpkin. When it's time to start carving we'll put it on pause and do it together. How's that sound? Is it a good plan?"

"Yeah!" Jack exclaimed, he extended his arms and 'flew' through the rooms of the house until he passed the kitchen with a cleaned off island and into the living room.

Aaron lugged the pumpkin into the kitchen, depositing on the island. He then went to the drawer and extracted a few large knives and ice-cream scoops.

"Have fun. I mean it about the mess, I'm going to set up a video to show him daddy in an FBI vest."

"You're showing him that training video, right? The one where you and Morgan were doing different self-defense moves?"

Aaron nodded.

"So, Aaron, what do you want to be for Halloween?"

"No idea. I'm open to sane suggestions."

"On a scale of 1 to 10… 10 being a space-monkey in a tutu…"

"4."

"Right," Reid smiled, "How do you feel about face-paint?" The seriousness made Aaron nervous. "You'd be a great werewolf."

"Only if you're Little Red Riding Hood," Aaron shot back, more joking than what his lover apparently thought.

"I'm not wearing a dress and a corset… but I could work something out."

Aaron doubled over to laugh, the mental image too much fun, he straightened back up. "Yeah… yeah sure, you work on that. I'm going to set up that video."

Spencer held the ice-cream scoop challengingly at his lover, "Aaron don't tempt me, we've seen what an ice-cream scooper can do." He set to scooping out the pumpkin pondering just how to make a Red Riding Hood costume and keep his dignity in the process, then realized Halloween wasn't about dignity and then just started to brainstorm ways to keep it from necessarily traumatizing Jack, but maybe not Aaron. He might deserve to be traumatized by it, maybe.

FIN.


	23. 10 1 Thats NOT My Uncle

Written for The IKY'dU Blog - Hotch/Reid Writing Challenge: Round #10  
Blog Link: ./  
Pen name: Vanessa S. Quest  
Title: That's NOT my Uncle  
Genre: Domesticity  
Rating: K  
Prompt 1: Nothing Takes Your Place

A lump on the mattress, underneath the thick comforter made Aaron smile as he entered the room. The curled up little ball under a bright red blanket concentrated on making himself small.

"Come on Jack, it's time to get up."

Jack threw the covers up and over him, sitting upright and looking at his dad with a large smile on his face. "Daddy! You're home!"

Aaron merely gave a nod, "Aunt Jessica left last night when we got back, let's have breakfast."

Soft feet padded into the kitchen just ahead of Aaron's sock-clad feet. Jack stopped short of the doorway when he saw a light on and motion.

"Daddy, who else is here?"

Aaron paused for a moment. "Jack, you know I love you very much, right?"

Jack turned to face his dad, pouting. Even a six year old knows speeches started like that aren't good news.

"Who's here?"

Aaron tried to refrain from smiling, Jack's haughty little pose was directly from the Haley play-book.

"You know how sometimes I have company? How Spencer sometimes comes over for dinner?"

"Uh huh… is it Spencer?" His face softens slightly at the thought. He pokes his head through the door in time to see a person in mismatched socks digging through the back of the fridge. "Spencer's here! But… Spencer's never here when I wake up!"

"We're going to start changing that. Spencer is very important to me too. You like Spencer, don't you Jack?"

Jack nodded once, "He shows me magic tricks."

Aaron smiled, "Let's go in and say good morning."

"So did Spencer sleep over again?" Aaron coughed a bit trying to recover from the thought of being found out by a six year old. "Because whenever he used to sleep over he always left before you'd get me."

Spencer hummed something along the lines of, "I told you he'd notice that…" but Aaron ignored it.

"Well, you see, Spencer's testing out staying here. Spencer might move in, if you like, that is." He gives Jack a very understanding, measuring look, and gives Spencer a pleading look that he understands that Aaron can't just bring him on board unless the copilot Jack accepts the flight plan. Why he made the entire analogy pertinent to air-travel told him he was flying too much lately.

"I like when Spencer stays over, but won't Spencer's family miss him?"

Spencer smiles at that, "Well, Jack, I like to think you're part of my family. Your daddy too, so really, it's lonelier when I go back to my apartment by myself away from you two."

Jack takes a moment to calculate. "But how are we family? There's daddy, mommy in heaven, and Aunt Jess, and Uncle…"

"Spencer is kind of like an uncle. You know how you listen to your Uncle when you're at Aunt Jess's?"

Jack turns his head to the side, seeming to take it into account and looks at Spencer. "But if he's an uncle, who's he married to?"

Aaron falters, "Uncles don't have to be married to be in the family. Uncle Sean's my brother."

"But Aunt Jess is mommy's sister, Uncle Sean's daddy's brother, and Spencer's not anyone's brother… so he has to marry someone to be in the family."

Spencer merely rocked on his feet, each swing a false-start in how to explain his relationship to the boy's father and how gay marriage works, and how they aren't ready for that step, well… Aaron and Spencer were, but Aaron and Spencer and Jack were not… and how he'd have to wait to marry Aaron to be in that sense to-

"Are you going to marry Spencer, daddy? Because then he wouldn't be a uncle, he'd be a step-dad. Chris from school has a step mom and step dad, two step sisters and a half brother and a dog. Are we getting a dog?"

"Uh…" the intelligible response from Aaron made Spencer smile, for a moment he understood what it must be like to be on the tail-end of one of his own tangents.

"Jack, are you saying you're okay if I marry your daddy?"

Jack nodded a half nod. Spencer looked at Aaron with a grown-up look of a soft smile that is hard for both Hotchner men to read. Jack takes Spencer's hand and drags him to the bread. "We're supposed to have breakfast. Daddy, if you get married to Spencer do we get a dog?"

"…If… you want one?" Aaron says, still trying to get his bearings. It was probably bad to associate a reward with his relationship with Spencer, instead of taking it as two different things entirely. "We can talk about getting a dog later, but Jack, even if we don't get a dog, would you like it if Spencer became an official part of our family like that?"

"Yeah, I like Spencer. You smile more after he's been here." The boy smiled toothily, and Spencer can't help but blush hearing that insight. "Chris says his step mom and step dad don't replace his real mom and real dad, but they have a different place. I don't think mommy would be mad."

For a moment, Spencer refuses to turn around from the counter where he had been busily moving his hands to chop up some veggies to put into an omelet to go with the Texas Toast he was working on. His whole body faltered in that instance at the wave of emotion in hearing Jack even talk of his mother like that. He didn't think he'd get absolved by Haley through the proxy source of her son, no less. To be told it was okay, acceptable no less? It took quite a bit of will power to keep his own emotions in check, and until he could convincingly look at Aaron and Jack as if that had NOT been a large fear hanging over his head for the past three weeks as the lovers discussed moving in and progressing further… Aaron eventually put a hand on his shoulder.

"Want me to take over for a bit?"

Spencer swallowed thickly and gave a nod, not trusting his voice, or his hands with a knife.

"H-Hey Jack, want to practice reading together? Your dad will finish up cooking and then we can sit down to eat."

"Okay!"

Fin.


	24. 10 2 Unlucky

Round 10 Prompts:

Written for The IKY'dU Blog - Hotch/Reid Writing Challenge: Round #10  
Blog Link: ./  
Pen name: Vanessa S. Quest  
Title: Unlucky  
Genre:  
Rating:  
Prompt 2: Dark Grey Socks

.CM.

Reid would have to have a bit of a word with Jack and Aunt Jessica next time he had a moment, and he so very hoped he'd have more of those as he laid on the pavement as he twitched in agonizing discomfort.

His left leg made spastic jerks and he lets out a strangled gasp. He shouldn't have rolled over, but he couldn't not either. He winced his eyes and screwed them into focus to look for the source of all this merriment. Not the dark grey socks that were resting in pair on his feet… no, he meant the psychopathic ass who shot him in the back.

He saw something much better than the unsub at that moment though. He saw Morgan. A very angry looking Morgan, actually. He was sprinting towards Reid from his position where he had had better cover. Flinching his eyes he tried to move his toes and could see signs of his shoes wiggling in response. That was a very positive thing, even if it did hurt like a mother that his left leg still kicked as he forced the toes to extend and abduct.

Pain blossomed in the small of his back indicating he was going for a bus ride if all went well, it also indicated something much more ominous as Morgan's shadow fell over him.

"Don't… you can't move me. Possible SCI." He could feel Morgan grabbing his belt and that sent mixed feelings to his brain, trepidation, pain, and a muscle-memory of pleasure in his abdomen making them contract inappropriately. He would never, ever tell Hotch that. Ever.

"Morgan I said don't!" His leg kept twitching and it was starting to unnerve him.

"I can't leave you in the open like this!"

"Morgan, get behind the SUV… he'll shoot you if you stay out in the open."

"Where the hell are you hit, man?"

"My back. I don't know where, if it got my vest or lower…" In his voice there is fear, Reid wouldn't deny it- namely because if he lied that obviously again Hotch would skin him. His lover made a habit of calling him on his bluffs when they weren't better-hidden than that.

"Right. I'm going to reach around and-"

"No, you're not." Reid gulped, "Morgan, he's coming back to the window, get behind some cover, now. He probably thinks I'm dead…"

Morgan paused, seemed to debate the merits of taking Reid up on his offer, and then made peace with it. "If you don't hold on I will personally revive you just to kill you again."

Reid felt a pang of happiness and abandonment when the hand pulling up on his belt disappeared, he chose to empirically ignore all those impulses to glare at the unsub and try to deduce where he really did get hit. Trying to sort out the constricted muscles in his back, the pain, the twitches, and what else his body was going through. He couldn't feel hot or cold or wet or dry, he just felt raking tingles as thousands of shocks made the muscle fibers in his back and left leg go taut.

Screeching tires got his attention pretty quickly when it came six inches in front of his face though. He gave three nervous heaves before shooting Morgan a dirty look as the man climbed out of the SUV next to Reid, the vehicle acting as cover for them both.

"What the hell are you thinking?" Reid bit back, dumb-founded by Morgan's propensity to do something so ballsy.

"Giving you cover since you can't move. Thank me later." He touched his radio, "Hotch, Reid's down… we're pinned down behind the Tahoe."

It doesn't take a genius to know what look Hotch had on his face when those words registered, but it helped. The stoic lines tightened just a bit, how his eyes would reveal his worry, bored into the direction of the scene, he wouldn't look distracted, but he would be.

Reid pressed his mike, "I'm stable."

His friend gave him an incredulous look but didn't counter it.

Mike now disengaged, Reid looked at Morgan, "If they rush in there unprepared it's not going to end well for anyone. I might be in shock. I need you to check my radial pulse."

"Your what?" Morgan gave him an unnerved look, "I am going to personally watch Hotch chew your ass out when he finds out you lied, you hear me?"

"My wrist, take my pulse from my wrist. I need to know if it's above 80 beats per minute and if it feels faint or bounding. You can't roll me over and I'm thinking this is neurological shock but if I am bleeding, it'll tell you with a 75% certainty if it's bad."

Dark chocolate eyes fixed on Reid's face, taking in the seriousness it held before returning to his watch, tanned fingers touching pale alabaster flesh. "It's 90 a minute… it feels weak, too. You better hold on, Reid."

Reid flinched his eyebrows, in the background he could hear several popping sounds, they were like the Chinese New Year's noise makers he'd hear come late January or early February on any given year.

"Reid… Reid! Come on, snap out of it, I'm talking to you!"

Those words drifted past him, as sensations of cold fire moved up his back and across his lungs and chest, then back down toward the blossom of agony in the small of his back. Reid's eyes rolled up.

He felt a stereo serenade of Morgan's pleas, playing both in his left ear through his radio and his unobstructed ear, "Reid's out- whatever you're going to do has to be NOW!"

.CM.

Irises twitched far faster than Reid's left leg, he could see Jack and Jessica folding laundry together by his and Aaron's bed. He had gotten home a few minutes ahead of Aaron thanks to his need to pick up his contact prescription. That had made Reid travel back via commuter-rail, back two stops before the one he'd normally get off at if Hotch was working late on a given day.

When he arrived back home to the Hotchner house, the house he'd been living in with the Hotchner men for the past two years if Reid could accept that he had now been in the FBI for 10 years, to find Jack and his Aunt Jess folding underwear and socks. Everything about that made Reid uncomfortable.

He had come in, set his messenger bag, his go bag, and his eyewear bag down. The green and white plastic bag on the edge of the bed as he gave Jessica a very unhinged look of a nervous in-law who didn't know how to interact with the woman without his lover nearby, "Uh, thanks… for… watching Jack and helping with the… uh… laundry? I can take over that."

"Oh can you? For a genius you're not very good at pairing socks." She smiled, her light jib had been playful but Reid suspected a serious resentment for such a small quark. Women could be vicious about stuff like that.

It had honestly taken Reid five years working in the field with his coworkers before he stopped wearing paired socks OVER his unpaired ones. "Yes, I can actually. So, I've got this under control. Thanks again." Reid had immediately taken over folding the underwear, blushing madly that someone had even touched his unmentionables let alone his sister-in-law… well, kind of in-law? In-law-in-law? Whatever Jack's Aunt was to him, it was still awkward.

"Jack hasn't had dinner yet. I have something on the stove." Reid abandoned the laundry to follow her down the steps to the kitchen to take over the cooking while waiting for Aaron to arrive home. In those few minutes, Reid supposed Jack decided to help him pack his go-bag. He must have took out all of Reid's regular socks, because the next afternoon when they had arrived at the hotel, Reid pulled out a change of socks only to find solid grey socks that Aaron usually wore.

He bit back a swear, dug to the bottom of his bag, found none of his socks, and then went through Aaron's go bag just to be on the safe side. Not a one of his striped socks, not even so much as a white sock in either bag, all of the socks were perfectly paired dark grey socks. Reid's eyebrow twitched.

Shaken breath, he continued to tell himself, "It's just superstition. Paired socks only seem statistically less lucky than unmatched socks because of how many more people wear them in pairs." Reid continued to tell himself that, all day, all the next day, all the next day after that, until he got shot in the back that was.

.CM.

Reid's eyes shot open wide, mouth gaping as he tried to force out a strangled cry. Sound refused to leave his lips though; the way all his muscles constricted made everything feel of fire until a prick in the arm was followed by a wave of coolness and a heaviness that Reid could firmly identify as a muscle relaxer being administered.

He limply fell back into the C-collar and backboard he was strapped to. Eyes darted left and right, up and down wildly. He needed to assess how this had come to pass. What had transpired while he was no-doubt unconscious. Where was Hotch? He could see Morgan, but Hotch- he had to be okay, he was in the raid wasn't he?

There was a blur of motion just beyond the paramedics and Morgan was looking past him out the open door of the ambulance.

He wondered if they had packed cotton in his ears or if he was in that bad a state of duress, he focused on Morgan's lips and had an easier time reading them than hearing him. "Hotch is coming now Reid. I told you I'm watching you get that ass-chewing you deserve…"

Morgan was trying to joke, and was calling him Reid still, not Pretty-Boy, not Junior-G-Man, not Kid, not any of the many familiarities he'd use under lighter circumstances.

"Am I bleeding still?"

Morgan shook his head, "You weren't bleeding at all, but you're still pretty messed up."

"How is that possible?" Reid's eyes were already on his heart monitor, heart rate at over 100 beats per minute.

"They say you're in shock."

"Hypovolemic would mean blood loss though!"

"It's neurological." A paramedic voiced, putting a mask to Reid's face, "Deep breaths, sir. We're closing the doors, we have to get him to the hospital ASAP."

"Hold that, I'm coming with you." Hotch said, his eyes landed on Morgan who stood up.

"He was hit 30 minutes ago." Morgan offered, "And he blacked out 5 minutes after that."

The paramedic nodded and jotted down that timeline before injecting three more mystery cocktails into Reid. He supposed they were vasodilators, muscle relaxers, and pain killers. The standard for spinal cord injuries, but then again… maybe there weren't any painkillers.

"I can't feel my left foot…" He said with stark realization. "Am… Am I moving my foot?" He tried to sit up to see as panic set in. Strong hands kept him pinned down as the straps were tightened.

"Sir, you have to lie still." A pen light was waved in front of each pupil in a V swivel once then twice. "He's going unresponsive. Gun it Jonny."

"On that," the driver called back, hitting on the sirens.

Hotch put a hand on Reid's left ankle, unable to get closer to Reid's line of sight and keep out of the way of the busy hands of a racing paramedic. He looked up to spot brown eyes that seemed frantic.

"Reid, listen to me Reid, you have to focus." Hotch offered, "They're asking you questions, come on, these should be easy for you…"

One nod signaled the paramedic to try again.

"Spencer, wiggle your fingers for me, would you buddy?" Reid flexed and extended his hands to fists and loose twice. "Good, great… now try turning your ankles."

"Nghah!" A barely audible string of sounds slipped through Reid's teeth, eyes flinched as he attempted to comply. His right ankle moved a wide range while his left only ticked a few millimeters in either direction, still more than the time before though.

"Spencer, talk to me, what hurts?"

Hotch sat back, he willed to have something to do to help but had no great fix-all. Maybe if the positions were reversed Reid would be able to say or do something… as it was now though, he felt incredibly frustrated and helpless.

"Spencer…? Oh don't go quiet on me now…" He measured the heart monitor and shook his head, "He's going under again. Jonny, ETA?"

"Another minute, we have to take a detour." The driver, Jonny apparently, responded.

Hotch leaned closer in toward Reid, "Reid, Reid snap out of it. That's an order! You know I don't take kindly to you lying about your condition. You said you were stable!"

"Sorry, boss, won't happen again…" Reid's eyes closed, "Morgan, I think I see movement in the building… Morgan… Morgan where did you go?"

Hotch flinched as he watched Reid replay what had happened thirty-seven minutes ago. "Come on, Reid, it's just another few minutes. You have to focus, come on Spencer you can handle that…"

Through the windshield Hotch could see the large expanse of a county hospital spilling open. The sizable hospital was just within the city limits, "Pull your act together!"

"Sir, you have to sit back." The paramedic informed Hotch as he injected twice more into Reid's swelling bicep. "Jonny, he's out again."

Jonny fiddled with the radio before slowing in front of the emergency department's ambulatory bay. Doors were pushed open by the paramedic who had been working on Reid in the back of the vehicle the duration of the ride.

The stretcher passed between paramedic to nurses and doctors as information also was exchanged. Hotch staring daftly at the exchange. For so much chaos there wasn't a drop of blood. That scared him the most.

.CM.

It took another three hours, two sets of x-rays, and several IVs connected to Reid before the young man started to come back around and for Hotch to get any answers from a nurse.

Reid's eyes were swollen and puffy as they creaked open painfully slowly. He identified it with edema, but couldn't fully grasp why his eyelids would be so effected. It didn't matter though, he could only think of one critical thing at that moment. He spotted Hotch hovering just on the inside of the door.

"Aaron…"

"Spencer! How do you feel…"

"Get them off."

Hotch gave his lover a baffled look. "Spencer, what are you talking about…?"

"The grey socks, get these unlucky things off me before this place catches fire or something."

"Spencer, they took the socks off before you had the full body x-rays…"

Reid fluttered his eyelids up and down in a rapid session of blinking to clear the fog between him and reality. "Oh thank God. Your sister in law is trying to kill me. Jack might be in on it… switching out my socks…" He groaned.

Hotch stepped closer to the incapacitated agent.

"Am I moving my feet now?"

Eyes quickly found the motion running underneath the tented sheets. "Yes."

"Glorious, the unsub…?"

"Surrendered after a two minute shoot-out," Hotch informed, "The only injury reported was yours."

Reid nodded his head in understanding, "So, what is it? Where was I hit?"

"It hit your vest at the edge. According to Nurse Gladys you broke one of your vertebrae."

"Lift my chart…" Reid gave a nod, which Hotch obliged, handing it off to his lover. After thirteen seconds he handed it back. "It cracked my sacrum, the swelling was pinching off nerves. That's good news."

"Paralysis as good news… please elaborate."

"Temporary paralysis is good news. They reversed it before it became permanent. I feel like I'm more jellyfish than human with all the muscle relaxers though."

"Spencer, you scared the hell out of me." The soft smile Hotch exchanged with Reid as he said that made his lover respond in kind.

"Yeah… sorry about that, Aaron, please find me a proper pair of socks to prevent this from happening again."

Hotch let out a small laugh. "You're in luck that there's a Macy's a few blocks away. I'll have a talk with Jack and Jessica about how far they can take hazing you."

"I'd appreciate it. Normal 8 year old hazing is one thing, but your son's clever." He smiled, then lazily succumbed to the effects of muscle relaxers on his entire system.

"Good night Spencer."

Fin.


	25. 10 3 Exposure

Written for The IKY'dU Blog - Hotch/Reid Writing Challenge: Round #10  
Blog Link: ./  
Pen name: Vanessa S. Quest  
Title: Exposure  
Genre:  
Rating:  
Prompt 3: Deathly Pale

"Wheels up in one hour," Hotch had stated that after going over the initial case review with the team. So far, there were four victims, each found in an outlying suburb of Las Vegas, each victim wearing a stamp from a swank hotel on the strip, and not a one showing up on film at said swank hotel, ever.

The signature made it clear that the four were connected even if nothing else seemed to give any indicator.

Reid stood by the coffee pot waiting for the others to arrive back, his go bag already present at his desk. Hotch came down from his office to join his lover for a cup and see what he was thinking, which with Dr. Spencer Reid, was usually a very long list.

"Reid," He started and gave a supportive head nod.

"Hotch." He smiled with puffed cheeks and crinkled nose, teeth hidden by pursing lips.

"What's on your mind?"

Reid's eyebrows raised, he took a sip of coffee, "I haven't visited my mom in a while. After the case is over, I'm going to have to give her a proper one."

"Think you'll need a few days off?" Hotch suspected, and Reid's head nod confirmed his suspicions. "Take as much as you need, you have plenty saved up."

Reid gave a small smirk, "That I do." With a head-turn Reid noticed a petite blond lugging in a suitcase with wheels and a handle. The bright pink color made it easy to confuse it for a six year old girl's, or Garcia's coincidentally. His eyebrows rose up reflexively, and again, he took a sip of coffee not saying anything.

"I'm not late, am I sir?" Seaver offered in courtesy.

Hotch shook his head, "No, Morgan and Prentiss still aren't back yet." He glances at his watch, "You have another five minutes."

"Thank goodness, I got caught in traffic." She smiled, sweating off bullets.

"You drive?" Reid said, turning his head to the side.

"Yes, why is that strange?"

"No, not at all." Reid explained and took in some more coffee. "Ashley, do you play cards?"

Hotch shook his head and took strides toward his office, "Reid, don't take advantage of her. Seaver, never play him for money, he's from Vegas and he counts cards." With that admonishment he went back through the bullpen and up the stairs to his office.

"Really? You're from Vegas?"

"The suburbs."

"Wow, so are you going to see your parents?" Ashley asked, Reid flinched at that. He hadn't really been willing to talk about it at the moment, but with the question in the air he felt obliged to answer.

"I… might see my mom after this is over. I'm estranged from my father."

"Right… you mentioned that before, didn't you?"

"When you came in for your first consult actually, yes," Reid specified.

Seaver focused her eyes, "Let me guess…"

"There's another rule in the BAU you should be firmly aware of." Reid said without missing a beat, "Besides not gambling against me for money- and Hotch didn't just mean cards, he meant anything for money including Jeopardy- we don't profile each other. We just don't." He downed his cup and turned back on the machine.

"Oh… oh!" Ashley covered her mouth in realization, "That hit a nerve, didn't it? I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that."

"That's fine, but I'm a private person."

She gave a stiff, awkward nod to that, the air heavy for a few moments. "Does he still live in the area?"

"As far as I know, yes, he does."

The elevator doors chimed as they opened, Morgan and Prentiss waltzed in three minutes late thanks to DC traffic patterns.

As the jet began to make final descent, Garcia's iPad kicked into life. "Not good, they have a fresh body-dump."

Hotch looked across the team members, "Alright, Seaver, Morgan and Reid, I want you at the latest crime scene, Prentiss and Rossi witness interviews, Garcia and I will set up base, rendezvous back in two hours."

"Yes sir." Ashley voiced while the others gave their collective nods.

Las Vegas in the daytime has never been a cold place, night time in desert air being a different story entirely, Reid stepped out of the plane and welcomed the 40 degree weather happily over the 20 degrees it had been in Quantico thanks to a cold-front.

Twenty minutes later by SUV and Reid had lost all recognition of warmth and feelings of gratitude. He had come upon the body first, leaving Morgan for the polite introductions just offering his own wave before stepping inside to get to business. Within walking through the door, spotting the body and two seconds passing, the blood from his face completely drained.

A gloved hand quickly came to his mouth. Morgan, two steps behind him gave the man a strange look.

"Reid, relax man, we've seen worse than this." His eyebrows waggled upright, "Bludgeoning deaths are always… messy, but get a grip, you can't have the LEOs thinking you're soft."

"Reid…?" As the deathly pale features started to move toward the green spectrum, Morgan changed tactics, "Step outside get your bearings, and try not to puke on the crime scene."

Reid gave a curt nod and backed out of the room, not turning around until outside the door and sprinting behind the SUV.

Seaver looked between Morgan and the retreating Reid, "Is… he alright?"

"Different things hit people…I've never seen him react like that before, though."

"Should I… go check on him?"

Morgan shook his head, "Give him a moment to collect himself." He squatted beside the body to look at it, for a moment he tried to look to see how or why it would upset Reid but couldn't place anything.

"He's from Las Vegas, right? Could he know the victim?" No sooner than Seaver said that than she rushed out the door to find Reid. She missed the look in Morgan's eyes as realization hit him hard in the stomach.

Morgan whipped out his phone.

Seaver was behind the SUV watching Reid's eyes leak fat trails of sloppy tears and mouth emit clear throw-up. All in all, definitely not Dr. Reid's best as he lurched over.

"Uh, Dr. Reid…?" She said tentatively, she approached unsure if she really should be the one doing so. "What's this about?"

He held up a hand indicating her to not come closer, his other hand wiping at his eyes as his stomach tried to empty itself three more retched times. He let out a violent cough and spat the remainders of foul-tasting bile before falling back into the vehicle. His phone violently rang the second his back made contact.

He gave Seaver a look, "I have to take this." He said, pulling the phone from his pocket.

"Reid, get back to the station, now. Have Seaver drive. Morgan has it." Hotch started before Reid could respond.

"Understood." He swallowed back thickly and disconnected. "Seaver, we're needed back at the office, you drive."

"Sure… I'll… tell Morgan?"

Reid nodded, "I'd appreciate that."

As Seaver stepped back into the building she spotted Morgan disconnecting from his call. "What's going on? First we're told to come here, then Reid gets a call telling him he and I should head back and that you've got this…?"

"It's Reid, well, his dad. Victim five is William Reid…" He slid a hand down his face, "I didn't recognize him… how the hell Reid did with his face caved in like that…" He shook his head. "I called it in to Hotch, Reid's off the case. He can't work something like this, and he's in no shape to drive. You saw him. Drop him back off then come back, I could use the help."

Seaver nodded, "Right. Thanks for telling me, I don't think Dr. Reid would've…"

"Ashley, you don't know this about him, because you weren't around, but they were on the outs in a bad, bad way. His dad wanted to make peace, but Reid wasn't ready to. He's going to be kicking himself in the ass and feel really horrible, I don't recommend trying to tread that path."

"I thought we aren't supposed to profile each other? Reid said it was a rule."

"It is. We do it anyways, we just never tell anyone what our insights are. I know you've come to the same conclusions."

"Abandonment issues are pretty clear." She said with a nod.

"Yeah, well, get him back to HQ. He shouldn't have to sit near this."

TBC.


	26. 10 4 Reel

Written for The IKY'dU Blog - Hotch/Reid Writing Challenge: Round #10  
Blog Link: ./  
Pen name: Vanessa S. Quest  
Title: Reel  
Genre:  
Rating:  
Prompt 4: It's My Life

The drive between crime scene and station hadn't been long if measured in seconds, but if measured in self-deprecation, horror, shock, and inadequacies, which Seaver supposed it was- the car ride couldn't have taken longer.

"Um, Dr. Reid… how's your…?" She offered some chewing gum instead of finishing a thought that she was certain he didn't want to voice response to.

Reid laced his fingers in front of him, clutching his palms tightly shut and looking at it with fierce concentration. The strong look in his eyes were of a lost child, which Seaver knew she had worn when her father was sentenced to life in prison, it was something much more focal. He was staring into space at a clear point, shame she had no idea what that was. She was about to try another sentence when Reid's head shot up. He took a stick of gum that she didn't realize she had still been offering.

Silently he unwrapped it, slid it in his mouth and started to chew. "I have this, thanks for the ride. You should get back to Morgan." He said as she pulled into the station's parking lot.

"Are… are you sure you don't want me to go in with you?"

Anger flashed across his face but he bit back the urge to snap, "I'm fine. I don't need an escort. I do need that room categorized and every bit of evidence we can get out of there gotten. We're going to find out who did this and stop them." Reid undid his seatbelt and slid out of the Tahoe.

With more effort and control than it really should have taken, he closed the door with an assertive click instead of a jarring slam. He took several preparatory breaths then walked into the station.

"I can positively identify victim five." His voice holds an assertive tone, not the type of tone Reid usually had, but sometimes, when something's important- and this was- he used it.

Hotch looked up and down Reid, pale, shaken, but a confidence in brown eyes contrasted his physique. He shrugged toward an empty office then walked into it, Reid followed him in and shut the door.

"Can you do this?" Hotch asked.

"I'm going to. I have to."

"And victim five, no one's heard you give a positive ID…" he hated to push Spencer like this, he'd never push a victim's surviving family so quickly, but they needed Reid if they wanted to solve this quickly.

"Is William Reid, my father." Fingers raked through his hair as he fought to hold it together.

"Alright, Spencer, I'm locking the door." Aaron said, clearly switching out of Hotch mode, "When you're ready to start working the case, join us."

Reid's brow was burrowed with wrinkles as he frowned and let out a broken squeak as he started to cry. Hands still clutching his hair he rocked twice, stuttered in and out two breaths and collapsed his arms tightly around his chest. "I have to do this…how am I supposed to tell my mom this?" He back-hand slapped the side of the desk making his knuckles ring more than the ungiving metal before swiping a hand over his face. In those moments, Aaron approached, wrapped his arms around him and squeezed.

An assertive hand guided the back of Spencer's neck cradling it. "I can go with you, if you would like."

"No. It can't be you, of all people… god no… she'd associate you with death forever… maybe Rossi… no, I should… do that by myself."

"Spencer, I don't think you should do that alone. I get that your mom's health makes it precarious, but… it's very hard to compartmentalize and hold your mom in consideration and do the job. I'm sure Rossi is fine with being a bit of the bad guy."

"My mom hasn't had contact with him since I was 8, what is there that she could possibly contribute to the investigation? It's not an interview it's a death announcement!"

"Are you so sure? Spencer… I'm saying she might have more information than she can share with you as her son that your relationship precludes her telling you."

"You mean… you think she and my dad… might have been on speaking terms and she didn't tell me…" He swallowed back thickly, "And as such that you want to have her interviewed… my schizophrenic mother who has paranoid delusions involving the Federal Government specifically, immediately after finding out her ex-husband is dead."

There is a tangible silence for three long moments as Hotch waits for him to finish.

"…I… I really need a coffee." Reid sits down, more falling into the seat than actually sitting, trying to reel the emotions back inside.

"If you can't handle this, now is the time to say it, Reid."

"It's my life! I can't just have Rossi come shake it up and hand it back to me. I can do this, Aaron _let_ me do this!"

Hotch touches his thumb and index finger to his eyebrows before sliding his hand down his face, "I can't, I'm sorry but I can't. I'll make sure Rossi goes gentle…"

"Mom hates his books, she calls them pulp-trash, an abomination to the trees killed for the paper to print it on."

"…Then Prentiss or Morgan?" Reid shook his head rejecting Hotch's offers.

"She knows them through my letters… I can't believe I'm suggesting this… Seaver- if she doesn't introduce herself. Mom has no idea who she is and might forget about her, plus she looks the least official, well, besides Garcia and that's also out. I couldn't ask her to break the news to…"

"She does do grief counseling." Hotch recommended, Seaver, as a green-horn, just was too much of a wild-card to use on such a sensitive interview. Then again, that might be Reid's way of coaching the interview the way he'd want it, need it, Hotch corrected himself mentally. Reid had a structured way to think of his relations with the world especially the ones between his mother himself and his mother himself and his father. Disrupting that would be likely to put HIM in a psychotic break, let alone his schizophrenic mother.

"She'd probably, in all honesty, scare the hell out of my mother. She doesn't like being touched, do you think I pulled that trait out of the air? Seaver will probably be reserved but expressive so mom will be able to read it, not feel like she's being looked down on or put on airs. If it can't just be me, alone, she's the only viable option I have."

"Are you really alright with her meeting your mother in such a situation?"

Reid swallowed thickly, "I have to be, don't I?"

"Alright, I'll call her back in. So… what do you think?"

"Give me a few minutes to down some coffee and I'll be ready to work on a geographic profile. This son of bitch might think he can use counter forensics, but I promise you I'm smarter than him."

.CM.

Rolling up onto a brick structure had never felt so intimidating. Seaver closed her eyes to collect her resolve, this might not be her first technical notification of death, but the circumstances… were _different_. A coworker's family member, for one, and for two- telling a mentally unstable spouse, well she had to admit at least it would make for a more honest exchange. When people find out this sort of news the worst isn't the ones who vent. It's the ones who hold it in and then rage and explode within their private lives with no signs for help. She glances over to Dr. Reid, case in point.

"Don't worry about the notification. I'm doing that, you're just here to ask the questions Hotch thinks I don't want to hear the answers to." Reid undid his seatbelt and opened the door, faltering he turned to look at her for maybe the first time since they had gotten back from the crime scene. "Do not introduce yourself, I'm assuming you're going to be around for a while and it would make it awkward for me if my mom associates my teammates with personal tragedy."

"I'll do my best."

"…Seaver," Reid looked at her and paused, trying his hand at tact, something Aaron privately revealed to him he isn't quite good at, "You have to be emotionally honest with her, if you don't, it confuses her. She's probably going to be very upset and I'm not going to be able to keep it together. If you tell anyone about that when we get back I'll make sure you're gone, the LEOs don't need to know anything about my personal life. If you tell the team, do it discretely." He slid out of the car hoping he didn't just make a coworker hate him.

To his utmost shock and pleasant surprise she let out a, "Sure thing, Dr. Reid," with a kind smile before taking the key from the ignition and following him in.

Seaver did her best not to stare at the others in the institute, not to give them unprofessional looks, she nodded and smiled acknowledgements to the staff, but for the most part just let her eyes follow Reid's back as he approached a nurse's station.

"Oh, Dr. Reid! We didn't know you were coming in for a visit…" One orderly offered.

"I need to speak with my mother, and Dr. Norman."

"Oh no, is this bad news…?" The orderly seemed to see the red lining the bottoms of Reid's lower eyelids, the bloodshot expression. Instead of waiting for confirmation, the orderly dialed the psychiatrist and offered them a seat in the common area with a hand gesture.

Dr. Norman came out before Diana, spotting Spencer he made a b-line for the patient's son. "Dr. Reid, to what do I owe the…"

"Dr. Norman, I came here to deliver bad news to my mother. I doubt she'll take it well." He bows his head, "This might very well trigger an episode, but we have to conduct an interview with her afterwards."

He brought a hand to his face to hide his own grimace, he felt lower than a snake in the grass, "Is there… anything you can give her to make her more… pliable?" He let out a stiff hiccup of a cry before choking back down the rest of the outbreak to regain control. He had to keep himself together. It wasn't an option not to.

The doctor didn't voice a criticism, he took the view of the man in front of him then back to the agent beside him. He knew from Spencer's visits in the past that he'd never brought another agent with him, even if he was in the area on a case. "Who died?"

Reid's head bowed further.

He waited, when no response came, he asked again, "Dr. Reid? Who died?"

Seaver interjected, "His father. I'm here to investigate any leads, has Diana Reid had any contact with William Reid recently?"

Reid's head shot up and he glared at her, "I… I told you I've _got_ this!"

"No, you said you'd break it to your mom." Seaver said showing a small amount of defiance before towing the line back in, "It's unfair to you if I just make you do all the hard work. What you have to do is hard enough. You have to face your mom and tell her something like that. I know I've never met your mom or anything, but it's obvious you love her. Why don't you go talk to her, and I'll get _this_." She said playing on his words.

He shot a look back to Dr. Norman who was already taking out a capped needle and an ampule. "I assume this is a short interview? No more than 30 minutes?"

Reid nodded, "That should be suffice."

Ashley didn't signal elsewise, the doctor nodded and approached Diana. "Diana, you have a visitor."

"Spencer?" She smiled before giving the doctor a concerned look, "And what's that?"

"Just a precautionary measure. It will wear off within the next two hours." He extended his hand, she put down her book to look at him in petty annoyance but didn't struggle. She winced at the pinch before giving her doctor a look.

"I'd expect the brutes you hire to be so bad with needlework, but really, doctor! You're getting out of practice."

He smiled back at her, "I apologize, now, Spencer is in the common room waiting for you."

She picked up her book and moved toward the common room, Dr. Norman behind her.

Diana froze seeing Spencer and a blond agent beside him, "Spencer, what's this about?" It was obvious to the mother that something had her son upset. His posturing was all wrong, the way he was making eye-contact with the floor and sparingly shooting his bloodshot eyes toward her then averting them immediately.

She approached him, a foot away stopping. Ashley did her best not to mentally note the barricades between mother and child, it was easy when she saw Diana drape her long thin arm over Dr. Reid's shoulder, then moved the other arm around his back and pulled him into a comforting embrace. "What's wrong, you can tell me anything…"

Reid's arms curled under his mother's arms and around to her back, fists clutching the fabric of her sweater in between where her shoulders and neck formed a line as he buried his face into her sternum and let out a shaky sob. "Mom… dad… he's," He repositions his face to see her expression. "Dad's dead."

"Spencer, you're confusing me." She said, looking at him deeply.

"Dad's dead." He reiterated, she had to understand this. "Dad is dead."

"Stop it! It can't be! He was just here yesterday."

Spencer closed his eyes, "Was he really?" the disbelief in his tone evident, "Mom, he was murdered…" he hiccupped wet sobs at least three more times, "I saw it myself. It's dad."

Ashley cleared her throat, "Reid, I saw the visitor's log… your dad really was here yesterday."

Reid's eyes moved from his mother to Ashley then back to his mother again, suddenly a feeling of hurt throbbed below his breast-bone. "What…?"

"JJ isn't it?" Diana said crossly.

"Actually it's-"

"Yes mom, it's JJ." Reid countered not knowing what else to do, "JJ, go on. Tell me more, mom you were having visits with him? For how long? You never mentioned this before!"

She tilted her head to each shoulder before centering it again, "Spencer, I know you don't think I can take care of myself, but my relationship with you and my relationship with your father and you are different. Your dad and I… we've been speaking ever since you had that case."

Spencer pulled back from her arms, "You've been in contact with him? Why? Why!" The hostility in his own voice startled him, but the anger was even more frightening.

"Your father was doing his best."

"My father abandoned me, abandoned _us_ when I was _8_!"

"…That's only partially correct." She hung her head, "He always made sure that we had money for groceries, that the mortgage was paid up to date, that the gas and electricity were turned on."

"That's usually a given in divorce settlements where a father walks out on his unwell spouse and child." Spencer bit out bitterly, though he mentioned nothing about how usually the child would be put in custody of the other parent, actually, instead of the unfit one... he had to admit of the two, Diana was much more fit as being a human being than his late father.

"I don't think you understand the situation correctly, Spencer. William and I never got a divorce. We just… separated."

"What?"

"We're still married. Your father and I, the differences weren't why we separated, but you know that."

He swallowed thickly. "How much contact did you have with him after he walked out on us, mom?"

"Until that case, all we had were written correspondences, about bills, what programs you were in at school, that sort of thing." She turned her head to the side, "He's really dead?"

Spencer pulled out of her arms, "Yes. He is." His arms wrapped tightly around his midsection, a protective cocoon shielding him from her approach.

"Spencer… Spencer don't do this…" She said, pleading, pulling at his shoulder trying to get him to respond to her, soft tears were slinking down her cheeks. He allowed himself to be weakly pulled back into her grasp. "What happened to him? If it was a natural death you wouldn't be here so quickly."

Lines creased into a frown, "He was murdered mom." He gulped out a pained set of syllables, "We were on our way here to investigate a serial killer, before we landed we heard there was another John Doe which matched our case, and… it was dad. I saw it myself." Lips quivering and tears falling freely, he confessed to her, "I'm not going to ever forget what it looked like…"

"Spencer," her fingers raked through his hair trying to console her upset child, "Spencer, you're going to pull yourself together. You are much stronger than your father ever was. You always have been."

"And, when you pull yourself together, you're going to figure out who did this and stop them. Promise me. Promise me you'll stop them from doing this again!"

With those words, he willed himself to stop crying, which in turn signaled Diana's start to cry uncontrollably despite her attempts to evade the tears with her sweater sleeves blotting them away.

"I promise mom." As he fortified his resolve, his emotions fell off his face and landed deep inside his brown irises. "I _promise_ mom."

"Mrs. Reid, can you tell us about your visit with Mr. Reid yesterday? Any information you have might help us a great deal."

"Right… right, you're going to investigate this with your team." She said almost bitterly. Her sad face gave her son a pitiable look before running a hand down his cheek, "My brave, brilliant Spencer."

She refocused to look at Seaver, "He came to talk about Spencer, we like to have talks about our son, what he's doing with his life, who he's involved with…"

"Mom!" Spencer blushed, giving Seaver a very clear look that she should not probe deeper.

"…and then he told me about his dinner plans he had with a new wealthy client. Your father was working with him for rezoning an area and wanted to push him to making some public features on the properties like family oriented parks. He had to leave after that."

"Did he say the name of the client?" Seaver asked.

"I… don't remember it, I don't think he did."

"That's alright, mom you did great. Thank you. I'll… call his office. They should have records of that meeting." He silently told himself Garcia could dig up his expense account and tell him where he met up too. "Mom, I'll… make arrangements for the funeral, you should pick out the passage for the paper to run in the obituaries. You'd probably be much kinder to him than I could be."

She nodded, "Spencer…" She grabbed his wrist, "Say it. You're holding something back and I want you to say it."

He gave Seaver a look and she opted to walk away, the correct response for once from the young agent. "I didn't get a chance to forgive him yet, and then he went and died. It's not fair, mom. I planned to hold that grudge until five more years at least, then make him come to my wedding or something."

She brushed the bangs behind his ears, tucking them back, "I don't think Aaron's going to wait 5 years for a catch like you."

Reid smiled, "Thanks, mom." He swallowed back.

"Forgiveness is the final form of love."

"Reinhold Niebuhr." Reid crushed his mother in a hug before letting go. "After I solve this, I'll come for a real visit. The funeral will be within the week."

She nodded, "Hopefully your visit will be before it."

"I'll try mom."

TBC.


End file.
